Hi Migs,

In the spring and in the fall in Eastern Canada when water levels are high and fish are staying near the bottom of the rivers you have to use sink tip lines if you want to hook fish. Last fall in October when a friend and I fished the Margaree River in Nova Scotia, we had stepped into a pool where 2 people who were using floating lines for about 2 hours never even had a bump and on my first 2 trips though the pool hooked 2 salmon, one about 10 Lbs and one about 12 Lbs and my friend on his 3rd trip through hooked a 43" fish. You talk about 2 guys that were pretty purturbed and left. Some people say that fishing with sink tips that you will foul hook more fish, but I disagree. In all the years I have salmon fished I only foul hooked one fish and that was with a dry fly. When conditions call for it, I think that a sink tip line is the way to go. I have different setups where I have standard floating lines and standard sink tip lines and I also have setups with the multi tip lines with lines from slow decent to fast decent in different lengths.
As far as Dudley's comment on stripping more line in, my comment is depending on how heavy a sink tip you are using. If you are fishing a 30 foot heavy sink tip in deep water there is no way I could pull all that line up with out stripping more line then I would fishing a floating line.
Sometimes if you want to catch fish go with a sink tip.

My 2 cents worth,
Alan (salmonguy)