Interchangeable sink tip length for streamers

[flyfysher]

I got a couple of Galloup streamer videos and I decided I'll focus on going after larger trout with streamers this coming season.

By way of background, I plan to fish my pretty much unused 8 weight Rio Versi-tip (not the Versi-tip II or Scandi versions) fly line for this purpose. The vitals are: running line = 62', back taper = 4' and floating belly = 18 and 1/2'. It has a welded loop for attaching interchangeable sink tips.

I was told by the guy at the fly shop to disregard the 'type' and instead focus on the sink rate or ips (inches per second). That makes sense to me assuming there's no industry standard as to what the 'type' is.

Further, I don't usually cast that far when I'm out and about. I usually keep it 40' and under if not at 30' or less. So the point here is to be able to turn over the fly quickly and not suffer too much casting fatigue. I intend to throw large, generally unweighted streamers.

I've the following sink tips with loop to loop connections:

15' floating/9' sinking (overall 24') - 5.5 ips sinking tip;

24' - 5.5 ips sinking tip (don't ask why I've multiple 5.5 ips sinking tips. It's a long story. But I've no problem with cutting this tip down);

15' - 7.3 ips sinking tip (I actually have two of these as well. Again, it's a long story to explain); and

15' - 8.4 ips sinking tip (I only have one tip).

So, the question is this. What is the ideal length, if any, for the sinking tip in terms of cutting them back?

I'm thinking my primary go to tips should be the 15' - 7.3 and 8.4 ips sink tips.

I plan to use the line on my Sage 9'-6" VT2 8 weight rod and I'll be primarily fishing the rig on the Colorado (CO), the Green (UT) and the North Platte (WY). I'll probably have an 12" section of 20 lb. butt and 8-10" section of 15 lb. leader.

I'm thinking the ideal sink tip length would be 7' to 10' but I just don't know. Any advice?

[whatfly]

Huh? I hope someone with more time and patience will respond to this, but until then my comment would be that I'm not sure you are thinking about this the right way. Consider that when Galloup wrote his book, he was using full sink lines with unweight flies. Fast forward to today, and he is advocating shooting head style lines with long heads (e.g. "his" SA line has a 50' head) with weighted articulated flies. So if you were going to try to emulate Galloup's method, especially with unweight streamers like the Zoo Cougar, by using a VERY short head on a Versatip with its built in 19' WF floating head you might not get down fast enough to do much good, in many situations (perhaps not all).

Another issue is line weight. The Versi-Tip was designed to match the prescribed heads to meet the recommended line weight. Cut up the heads, and you are messing with those calcuations. No idea why you would want to use a lighter head to throw big bugs. Furthermore a shorter head won't hold the bottom as well making your presentations that much shorter.

So with what you have, I would argue that the heaviest 15' tip is your best choices UNALTERED, although they might not be the best solution for what you actually want to do. Very hard to make a definitive judgement without a better idea of the water you will fish, but I'm guessing they are not too disimiliar from the waters I know, so you might want consider making some heads out of some very fast sink line, like T-14. You can buy it by the foot at most shops, and you can then rig heads longer than you 15', and shorter if you really find that necessary. You may to experiment to see what you can throw comfortably, but with the distances you will be throwing, a little overlining won't hurt.

All that being said, I do know folks who are quite successful with short heads of T-14 on floating lines (6/8/10') but in those cases, they are using heavily WEIGHTED streamers on standard WF floating lines so the "heads" are overlining their rods (typically fast to very fast) but for the distances cast, this is not too much of a problem. Good luck with your experiment.

[sandfly]

just get some lead core and make up some lengths to add to end of other heads. will get down quick.

[Buddy Sanders]

Flyfisher,

To make this simpler:

For your use, start using the fastest sinking tip you have. Don't cut anything.

If you aren't getting down where you want to be, add weight to the fly/leader.

If you are getting hung up often, change to a lighter tip (I doubt you'll have this problem unless the water is very slow and shallow) or retrieve faster.

Buddy

[krauseb]

I have some Air flo sinking leaders that I use. They sink fine, but the longer the leader makes it harder to cast because of the hinge affect. I tried a full sinking line and my 6wt rod couldn't pick it up if I had too much line out. Just how deep do you want to sink?

[idlerick]

I'm kind of with Buddy on this - it's going to be a trial and error solution, and the solution will change every time you move to a new water depth.

I fish sink tips almost exclusively in saltwater, and I vary the Type by what my sonar is telling me about the water I'm in. Where I fish, it runs 2-12 feet, so I'll use everything from a Type I (Intermediate) to a Type VI. And you CAN approximate sink rate with line Type - The Type is very closely the sink rate in ips. Close enough for our purposes anyway. The advantage I see in a ST as opposed to a full sink is that the running line stays on top and is easier to control, feel, and pick up.

An 8-wt is pretty hefty stuff for the rivers you mention, but go with what you've got. (I would use more like a 30- or 40-lb butt section with the 8 wt, tho.) If you want an idea of what the manufacturer thought was the ideal sink tip length, go to their specs and see how long a tip is on their standard 8 wt ST lines. An 8 is probably going to run 7-10 feet. I know mine run from about 7 to nearly 20 feet, and the 20 is going to go deeper than the same line with a 10-ft tip. Your 7-10 ft length range will be pretty close, but I think you'll find a slower sink rate than the 7 & 8 ips tips will work better for you.
They won't be fun to cast, so your plan to keep it short is a good one. Good luck!

[flyfysher]

I'm kind of with Buddy on this - it's going to be a trial and error solution, and the solution will change every time you move to a new water depth.

I fish sink tips almost exclusively in saltwater, and I vary the Type by what my sonar is telling me about the water I'm in. Where I fish, it runs 2-12 feet, so I'll use everything from a Type I (Intermediate) to a Type VI. And you CAN approximate sink rate with line Type - The Type is very closely the sink rate in ips. Close enough for our purposes anyway. The advantage I see in a ST as opposed to a full sink is that the running line stays on top and is easier to control, feel, and pick up.

An 8-wt is pretty hefty stuff for the rivers you mention, but go with what you've got. (I would use more like a 30- or 40-lb butt section with the 8 wt, tho.) If you want an idea of what the manufacturer thought was the ideal sink tip length, go to their specs and see how long a tip is on their standard 8 wt ST lines. An 8 is probably going to run 7-10 feet. I know mine run from about 7 to nearly 20 feet, and the 20 is going to go deeper than the same line with a 10-ft tip. Your 7-10 ft length range will be pretty close, but I think you'll find a slower sink rate than the 7 & 8 ips tips will work better for you.
They won't be fun to cast, so your plan to keep it short is a good one. Good luck!

I agree with your assessment about the 8 weight being a little too hefty for some of the Rocky Mtn. freestone rivers. However, there are times where a 8 weight comes in handy. Think Miracle Mile and early spring and late fall season iffy weather type fishing. I had this 8 weight with the Rio Versi-tip for a long time and it was originally intended for steelhead fishing. Never got the chance to do much of it when I lived in WA because I was just beginning to work for myself and that took precedence. Since returning to CO I decided I would use this one as my primary big streamer rod. It's just been lying there unused.

Most of the time I'm fishing 4 weight or bamboo but we been going up to WY a little more often the last couple of years.

I just picked up a 5 weight Orvis Helios 2 and I'll get a 7' sink tip 7-8 ips sink rate for tossing streamers. My 6 weight rod is an old Sage LT and I feel as though it is a little too soft to be throwing large weighted streamers. But in terms of specifically targeting big trout, I wanted to dedicate the 8 weight to that.

My concern was the dynamics of casting a Rio Versi-tip line. I'm sure it'll likely be less than ideal casting wise and I've mulled over the idea of pulling it off the spool and just buying a dedicated streamer line with a sink-tip rate of 7+ ips. I'm figuring the waters I'm fishing will probably go about 3' to 10' deep.

Bottom line: I'm just going to have experiment with this.

[flyfysher]

Huh? I hope someone with more time and patience will respond to this, but until then my comment would be that I'm not sure you are thinking about this the right way. Consider that when Galloup wrote his book, he was using full sink lines with unweight flies. Fast forward to today, and he is advocating shooting head style lines with long heads (e.g. "his" SA line has a 50' head) with weighted articulated flies. So if you were going to try to emulate Galloup's method, especially with unweight streamers like the Zoo Cougar, by using a VERY short head on a Versatip with its built in 19' WF floating head you might not get down fast enough to do much good, in many situations (perhaps not all).

Another issue is line weight. The Versi-Tip was designed to match the prescribed heads to meet the recommended line weight. Cut up the heads, and you are messing with those calcuations. No idea why you would want to use a lighter head to throw big bugs. Furthermore a shorter head won't hold the bottom as well making your presentations that much shorter.

So with what you have, I would argue that the heaviest 15' tip is your best choices UNALTERED, although they might not be the best solution for what you actually want to do. Very hard to make a definitive judgement without a better idea of the water you will fish, but I'm guessing they are not too disimiliar from the waters I know, so you might want consider making some heads out of some very fast sink line, like T-14. You can buy it by the foot at most shops, and you can then rig heads longer than you 15', and shorter if you really find that necessary. You may to experiment to see what you can throw comfortably, but with the distances you will be throwing, a little overlining won't hurt.

All that being said, I do know folks who are quite successful with short heads of T-14 on floating lines (6/8/10') but in those cases, they are using heavily WEIGHTED streamers on standard WF floating lines so the "heads" are overlining their rods (typically fast to very fast) but for the distances cast, this is not too much of a problem. Good luck with your experiment.

Thanks for taking the time to respond and your insight. BTW - I didn't read Galloup's book. I received his two videos on streamer fishing. In it, I believe he said (perhaps I misheard him) that he used unweighted flies. He might have been referring to some specific ones because in checking out some of his patterns like the Peanut Envy and Sex Dungeon they have coneheads or lead eyes.

I've checked out the tapers on more than a few streamer lines and it may be that I'll just go with picking up a dedicated streamer line with a sink-tip.

[DG]

My recommendation would be to experiment with what you have and see what works best, FOR YOU, IN YOUR circumstances. I streamer fish the Gunnison and the Dolores fairly often, usually with a 3 or 4wt, and always with floating lines, and have never felt the need for a sink tip or full sink line (or an 8wt, although I do use a 7 on windy days at times). On those rare occasions I need to get down a couple more feet, I have a sinking polyleader that adds a couple feet of depth. I try never to overthink this. It is just fishing, after all.

Dennis

[jszymczyk]

I got a couple of Galloup streamer videos and I decided I'll focus on going after larger trout with streamers this coming season.

By way of background, I plan to fish my pretty much unused 8 weight Rio Versi-tip (not the Versi-tip II or Scandi versions) fly line for this purpose. The vitals are: running line = 62', back taper = 4' and floating belly = 18 and 1/2'. It has a welded loop for attaching interchangeable sink tips.

I was told by the guy at the fly shop to disregard the 'type' and instead focus on the sink rate or ips (inches per second). That makes sense to me assuming there's no industry standard as to what the 'type' is.

Further, I don't usually cast that far when I'm out and about. I usually keep it 40' and under if not at 30' or less. So the point here is to be able to turn over the fly quickly and not suffer too much casting fatigue. I intend to throw large, generally unweighted streamers.

I've the following sink tips with loop to loop connections:

15' floating/9' sinking (overall 24') - 5.5 ips sinking tip;

24' - 5.5 ips sinking tip (don't ask why I've multiple 5.5 ips sinking tips. It's a long story. But I've no problem with cutting this tip down);

15' - 7.3 ips sinking tip (I actually have two of these as well. Again, it's a long story to explain); and

15' - 8.4 ips sinking tip (I only have one tip).

So, the question is this. What is the ideal length, if any, for the sinking tip in terms of cutting them back?

I'm thinking my primary go to tips should be the 15' - 7.3 and 8.4 ips sink tips.

I plan to use the line on my Sage 9'-6" VT2 8 weight rod and I'll be primarily fishing the rig on the Colorado (CO), the Green (UT) and the North Platte (WY). I'll probably have an 12" section of 20 lb. butt and 8-10" section of 15 lb. leader.

I'm thinking the ideal sink tip length would be 7' to 10' but I just don't know. Any advice?

WOWW that's a great example of making fly fishing a whole hell of a lot more complicated than it needs to be....

If you're not getting the depth you need, add mass (either in the line or the fly) to get where you want.

In a constantly variable moving body of water those "7.3" or "8.4" or "5.5" sink rates are wild estimates at best. Would do better to just think "sinking", "sinking faster", and "sinking even faster".

Using a short leader as you describe is exactly what you want IMO with a sinking line and unweighted fly.

You will find uncountable variables as you fish, so it will take experimentation to find the best system for what you want to do on the waters you want to do it.