Best strike indicators?

I've found the yarn indicators too heavy and catch too much air; they really seem to mess up my casting. I like the Thingamabobbers for visibility and floating a wet, but I have to use the jam stops to keep them where I want them and I don't like the way they leave kinks in my leaders. Seems like the little rubber thingies in the twist-on ones get weak and I end up seeing them floating off by themselves. The few times I've tried the stick on ones they didn't seem to work that well for me. Any suggestions? Or am I just too hard to please :D?

my favorite are the airflo air-lock indicators. not sure if this falls into your "little rubber thingies in the twist-on ones" caveat. the airflo have a threaded screw on top with a small rubber gasket. never had one fail on me and have been using them for around a year now. toss some pretty heavy double nymph rigs with them and they float like a cork.

I use furled thread leaders....and the thingamabobbers stay put very nicely without the jam stops.

Ill 2nd the air lock strike indicators for heavy stuff or in Rapids, like the New Zealand system for a little better presentation of lighter rigs

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Originally Posted by NJTroutbum

I use furled thread leaders....and the thingamabobbers stay put very nicely without the jam stops.

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And an even easier solution is just use a thicker leader when using Thingamabobbers. I tend to use 12# Maxima mono leader for the top end of my nymph 'leader' and mostly eliminates the slipping bobber problem.

Air-Locks are good but bloody expensive, heavier than the Thingamabboers, and if you lose the little ring that locks it on the leader, you are out of luck. The fact that they are easy to adjust and mostly stay once set are their biggest advantage.

Palsa's round out my usual suspects because they are particularly useful in situations that require a bit more stealth.

I have switched to the Air-Lock brand. This year one of my guides introduced me to them. There is no kinking at all of the leader and they are easy to adjust. I did notice that with the very thin diameter leaders there sometimes was slippage. I thought on this a bit and set out to find a thin gasket type material to make additional gaskets. I actually found what I wanted in a hose used to drain large pools. Very thin but strong. I cut and punched out a number of gaskets and gave them a try the next time I went out. By sandwiching the leader between the furnished gasket and my gasket then tightening down the nut, there was no slippage at all. Yes, these are expensive. But I think they are worth it. They come in three sizes and they give you one extra nut per package of three. Best bet is to put them on over a flat area where you can easily find the nut or gasket if you drop them. www.fishairlock.com is a source to find out about dealers. I gave my guide some of my homemade gaskets and suggested he be the one to install these Air-Locks rather than his clients, you don't want to casually loose them.

Larry ---sagefisher---

rather than using "indicators" I now instead tie on a foam made fly (ex. hopper) and attach a subsurface fly with an appropriate length of tippet tied to the hook bend of the floater. Obviously this method doubles my chances of hooking fish plus the foam fly can be of any size to lessen air resistance when roll casting, which is my biggest objection to indicators. The floater will stay permanently in-place too

When I want to use an indicator I use a brand called Float Master. They stay on the line, don't kink it and are fast and easy to adjust for depth.

Here's the link http://floatmasterco.net/

I've tried most of the others in the market and these are the only ones I've carried for the last ten or twelve years. They come in tons of sizes, shapes, and colors and are nearly impossible to lose. Easy to put on and take off but you don't have to worry about casting one and then watch it float down stream as they will not come off the leader, unless you take it off.

These are my favorite, others have theirs but if I'm going to fish an indicator it's going to be one of the Floatmasters!

I use the live bait floats, shaped much like a Tylenol. I use a small piece of toothpick to peg them. I have also cut them in half with a razor knife when using midges.

When I use and indicator, I use an "insta-set" brand. These will indicate whether you have a drag free drift or not. You will be surprised at the results. I was having way too much tippet and leader length under the indy. I really slammed the steelies in NY using the insta-set.

Tommy at South River Fly shop showed me these "CorQs", http://strikeindicators.corqsflyfishing.com/
very similar to thingamabobbers, but they also give an educational feed back on how drag free your drift is, I like them a little better. As I run out of the thingamabobbers I am switching.
As far as the kinking with thingamabobbers, I also use furled leaders and kinking is not a problem, but dont use that little toothpick thing that now comes attached, cut that off and discard. The corqs use a rubber gasket instead of the metal ring and hard plastic in a thingamabobber, and I think it kinks much less.

If you like Thingamabobbers, other than the kinking and slippage, you might want to try these modications suggested by Gary Borger ...
http://www.garyborger.com/2015/04/24...-a-ma-bobbers/

I mostly use heavier, bright Amnesia for the butt section of my nymph leaders. The bright butt section serves as a "sighter" for tightline nymphing without an indicator most of the time. However, I can add a Thingamabobber to the heavy (15# butt section) when I need to. It seems to hold without slipping and the kinks can be removed by stretching the leader section.

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Originally Posted by johnstoeckel

If you like Thingamabobbers, other than the kinking and slippage, you might want to try these modications suggested by Gary Borger ...
http://www.garyborger.com/2015/04/24...-a-ma-bobbers/
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An interesting idea but seems a bit wrong headed because in my experience the ring is the weak point of the Thingamabobber and Borger's 'solution' is going to dramatically reduce the lifetime of the bobber. How much exactly is hard to say, but much easier to just thicken up the leader.

And at the risk of hijacking the thread, exactly why is everyone so worried about kinking their leader? One hears this complaint over and over again, but no idea why it is relevant when all one is doing is nymphing. As long as the kinks are not sharp enough to weaken the leader significantly, this really seams like a pointless worry.

The search for the perfect indicator is one of those eternal quests I think. I've tried pretty much all of them and had the same disappointments with the Thingamabobber that had originally seemed so promising. The most ideal solution for me has been the Float Master as mentioned previously. They're not as broadly distributed as a lot of the others, but you can order them online from plenty of places. They're as close to perfect as anything I've found so far.

I don't use indicators much, but I've had good luck with this: http://www.strikeindicator.com/

I like the live bait floats too

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Originally Posted by whatfly

And at the risk of hijacking the thread, exactly why is everyone so worried about kinking their leader? One hears this complaint over and over again, but no idea why it is relevant when all one is doing is nymphing. As long as the kinks are not sharp enough to weaken the leader significantly, this really seams like a pointless worry.

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Can't speak for anyone else, but I often use the same leader with and without an indicator and I'm not fond of the kinks and curls left behind when the indicator is removed.

I also don't like the kinks. If you have to adjust the depth of the flies then you start getting kinks in two or three places. I have often thought of the kinks as acting like a spring. When a fish takes a fly the kinks would start to straighten out prior to telegraphing the message to the strike indicator. It seems to me that you could miss a lot of strikes that way.

Larry ---sagefisher---