Gink gets my vote too.
Gink gets my vote too.
Same experience here ... that fly shop was touting the Frog's Fanny as the best floatant since the invention of the fly rod but I found it so so at best. And I'm a "Gink" fan as well, it seems to work the best for the most use. Now having said that, I've found that a dry fly after having been mauled by a fish or two, a re-application of the stuff does not work as well as the original application.
Another vote for Dry Magic.Originally Posted by chewydog
Regards,
Scott
Check to make sure it's not your flies? I can get more casts than that using no floatant in most instances.
It also helps to use a floating line, and not a sinking one. (smile)
I am with John on this one was thinking the same thing
Fly Fishing and Fly Tying Journal (the UK version) did a study a few years back on this question. The mag found that the best combo was using Watershed (or something similar) at least 24 hours before fishing and then drying the fly once it began to sink or got slimed by a fish with Shimazaki Dry Shake (or something similar).
Works for me. After I tie a dry, I put a few drops of Watershed on it, rub it in, and put in my box after 24 hours.
Gink gets my vote
This gets a third vote. All of the floatants will work. You didn't mention the size of the fly or the materials used to tie it with or if it was certain sizes or styles of flies. If you are using fluro on small flies the leader could drag the fly under. I tend to be a fly changer until I hit the one that works for me. Sometimes I don't put any floatant on because I will either catch a fish on that one fly and change it out when I inspect my tippet for nicks after catching a fish or I will change the fly before I have issues. Wulff patterns float like corks for a loooooong time. If you are tying large dries with wet fly materials that suck up a lot of water this will also cause problems.
If you look at this thread you will see a whole bunch of floatants that everyone says is the best, just like in your original post. That means that they all work gud nuff. Look for an answer to your delima somewhere else in the equation.
Rick
Back in the dark ages, when I first started fly fishing, I used the time-honored home-made standby: paraffin wax dissolved in white gas (gasoline fresh from the still; no additives). It worked OK, but left a lot to be desired (the price was right; Mom canned so she provided the wax, and white gas was $0.10 a gallon). Somewhere along the line, I was introduced to Gink, and it has been my "standby" to this day. I have also used Mucillin, both the red and the green label, with good success.
Frank
For the 'cheapies' among us:
Silicone Water Guard, available at WalMart in the camping section, will permanently waterproof your flies. After that, you don't 'need' anything else but a clean and dry fly and if it's tied correctly, it will 'float' forever.
But dry flies 'sink' for all kinds of reasons.
Drag: If the tippet sinks (flourocarbon sinks) or the current pulls on the tippet/line the fly can be pulled under.
Bouyancy:
If you don't have enough bouyancy to float the hook, the fly will sink regardless of what you do to it. If you are counting on the surface tension to hold up the fly, like many traditional dries, you have to make sure that the weight of all the materials doesn't overcome the surface tension. Real bugs weigh less than even the lightest wire hooks....
Fish slime:
Fish slime is a pure wetting agent, if you don't remove it the fly will sink unless it's made with foam or cork, etc.,. Your floatants, shakes, sprays, whatever won't help. You have to clean the fly or it will sink. A bit of dish soap and/or a vigorous wash in the water can remove this.
Waterlogging:
Even if you pretreat the fly, if you tied it with dubbing or any loose material like that, water can get into the spaces left between the fibers and add weight to the fly. If enough water weight exists, the fly sinks. A samadou patch or one of the super absorbent synthetic cloths can help suck the water from a fly and allow it to float better. Best is to just let the fly dry out (change flies).
Be careful with the 'dry shakes' type stuff. What most of them are made from is a super absorbing powder that takes in water. After use, if you don't get it ALL off the fly, when the fly next hits the water, the remaining powder will try to absorb the whole river, sinking your fly very quickly. Ten or more very fast false casts will sometimes flick of the remaining stuff, but doing this without using the dry shake will often do just as well.
And, lastly:
Rain-X is WAX, not a water repellent. It adds weight and won't help your fly float. What makes it repell water on GLASS, is the 'polishing it off after it dries' on GLASS. It's a very fine wax that fills the micropores in glass so that it becomes slippery. In itself, it 'repells' nothing. The 'film' that you polish off of the glass won't help your flies float, actually the reverse. Since you can't polish the flies after you add the Rain-X, and since flies are not made of glass, it's just more weight.
Buddy
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