fly line for tubing
Hi im new to the forum and was looking for advice. I have been flyfishing for a year now and havn't done anything put nymphing in rivers. I just got my 11 year old set up to fish with me and wanted to start him tubing. A local I talked to told me to use sinking line and not sink tip, but reading flyfishing 101 on this site says to use sink tip. Could you guys that are good at this tell me what line or lines I need for us? We both use 5 wt. rods if that matters, Thank you.
Fishing the Great Beyond
What matters is what pattern you want your fly to take on the retrieve, undulating (sink-tip) or horizontal (full sinking).
How deep do you want or need to fish? HOW are you going to fish? Casting, trolling, etc?
I use a floating line exclusively, but most of what I do is trolling a bugger. And if all you do is troll, it doesn't matter WHAT floating line, since casting is a rare event. If I think I need to get a little deeper, I use a sinking poly-leader. MUCH easier to cast than a sink-tip and gives me an extra foot or two of depth.
Thanks for the replys, I really dont have a clue how im going to fish. I planned on useing wolley buggers mainly, but have never fished with a float tube or flyfished a lake before. Would my floating line with a 7 to 9 foot leader be good?
Stillwater
I'd go with a WF line and a 5 to 7 foot leader depending on the water clarity and the spookiness of the fish. If you tossing buggers for Bass then 5 to 7 feet is fine and you will be fishing water to the depth of your leader. When fishing a lake/pond, you are usually only 20-30 feet from shore and fishing the shallows. The WF set up will let you fish everything but deep structure.
Start with topwater, then go to subsurface, and then go to dragging bottom. You can fish the bugger like a streamer subsurface and also drag and hop it like a plastic worm. Poppers are always a great for topwater and check out the James Woods Bucktail for subsurface - easy to tie and easy to cast.
Denny Ricard has some DVD's out on still waters fishing. I believe he has one called advanced Techniques for Trophy Trout -- or it could be Stillwater Presentation -- check his web site out -- I have them both but loaned them to a friend so I don't know the exact title or which one would be best. I think it is probably still water presentations
He has some excellentt ideas on float tube fising on still waters and I think you might find it of value. He also has some recommendations for fly lines and how to fish them.
I believe it is safe to say that if Denny Rickards had only one fly line it would be an intermediate.
Wannabe..you didn't indicate what fish you would be targetting...Rickards is a trout fisherman...trophy ones at that.
I haven't read all of this but you may find some answers in the stillwaters section of the archives here at FAOL. http://www.flyanglersonline.com/features/lakes/
Excellent suggestion......Originally Posted by rainbowchaser
To expand on Orthoman's suggestion....become a student of Rickards....Chan ...and Rowley.
I agree with viewing what Denny Rickards has to say about stillwater fishing. I also like his flies. They are very productive. I have three of his videos and his book. I usually watch the videos before the start of the fishing season and use the book for reference.
If I'm fishing from a pontoon boat I take two rods. I use a floating line on one of them and some sort of sinking line on the other-either an intermediate or a faster sinking line for big streamers.
If I am fishing from a float tube with only one rod I like using a multi tip line like the Rio Versi-Tip or the SA Quad-Tip. If fish are not rising when I start fishing I start with one of the sink tips and troll streamers searching for fish. If there are hatches later and the fish start rising I switch to either the floating line and fish dry flies or the intermediate line and fish emergers or nymphs. These lines work well for me.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote