I regularly fish a small lake with very big bluegills but they are almost never less than six or seven feet down and often much deeper. Across the way is another lake with nice crappies but they are usually about fifteen or twenty feet down. About the deepest I have had any success with flies is the six/seven foot range. After that the amount of slack in the line (I think) means that I don’t detect any strikes. How deep do you fly fish and how do you fish deep?
Since I fish dry flies 99% of the time.
Not too deep… 
In colder weather, I fish as deep as 12-15 feet for bass and brem. The fly I have the best luck with for bream is the Carter’s Sculpin. It has weighted dumb bell eyes and on a 9 foot leader with 2 feet of tippet and sinking line, it gets down there pretty well. It is a biut more difficlut to detect a strick though.
Jim Smith
I fish for bass in 2 ft. to 30 ft. of water. The deepest I have caught bass was in 35 ft. of water (acorrding to my depth finder) and that was only one single time. There is just too much belly and line strecth to get a decent hook set. But I’ve caught quite a few fish in the 20 to 30 ft. range. My largest 2 fish were caught in 22 and 28 ft. deep. I hate to say how large they were because people just don’t believe you can catch fish that size using a fly rod in deep water. Well, if someone twists my arm I’ll tell them :roll: . As for fishing deep it’s all in the fly line (super sink) and takeing time to let it sink all the way dowwwwwwn. You have to get hung up on the bottom a few times to really know where your fly is at. I’ve always used a trolling tecnic in my float tube and try to keep a tight line. When the bass are busting shad, I let the fly sink to the bottom and strip the fly in using quick short strips all the way back in. Here ia a fly I use when the bass are on shad.
I think the key would be the line. If you are trying to go deep with a floating or even an intermediate line you are probably falling way short. Use a type II or III and you might have better luck. Good luck.
I fish sinking lines down to 30 feet or so. I caught a Burbot down at 40 feet once when I was stopped to eat lunch. It was a huge suprise. I have sinking lines from Type #I all the way down to VI . the type VI will get you down quite fast and you use it with a quick retrieve. The I sink rate sinks very slowly , I am usually in the III or IV rate for Stillwater lakes.
With the II or the I you are making a super slow retrieve.
Gnu bee,Did you eat the ugly beast?
They make great fish chowder.
I just answered this somewhere else if you know what I mean LOL 
depends what i am fishng for but at the max probably 10 ft
Burbot are one of the best eating fish around, I usually get them at over 150 feet deep on jigs. They make the very best fish and chips.
The deepest that I have hooked a fish is 50ft. I pulled the fly free of a snag on the bottom and a Calico Bass struck it.
I rarely try to fly fish deeper than 30 feet though.
To get that deep and fish effectively you need to manage you boat/watercraft, current, drift, etc. in such a way as to allow the line to sink without being under tension. I also use short leaders of about 2-4 feet. Many flies will actually sink slower than the fast sinking shooting heads, expecially bulky flies. While testing lines and flies in clear water I have encountered situations where the deepest part of the flyline was 10 feet or more deeper than the fly. The line was essentially in a ‘u’ shape because the fly had enough bouyancy and bulk to resist the sinking line. Based on my observations I usually fish weighted flies when fishing deep.
For deep water fishing, and this is usually anything over 10’, I use sinking shooting heads. The fastest sinking combinations I have used are Cortland LC-13, Rio T-8 or Rio T-14 heads paired with a monofilament shooting line. These setups tend to result in a fairly straight connection to the fly also. Second fastest would be heads of the same type paired with a .024" intermediate shooting head. The combination of dense shooting head with thin shooting line sinks faster than any full length line that I have used. The Scientific Anglers Custom Tip Express and the new Rio OutBound T-14? Custom Integrated Shooting Taper are the next best.
Some of the species I have taken at depths of 20-30 feet include largemouth bass, walleye, northern pike, rainbow trout, bluegill, calico bass, sand bass, spotted bay bass, halibut, skipjack, yellowfin, and albacore tuna and a variety of reef critters.
I agree with the 30’ being the extreme norm.
I fish a large lake here and during the summer I do well with a fast sink line and right off the bottom in 40 to 58’ of water. I am down to my backing.
My favorite however, is anywhere from 10 to 30’of flouro tied right on my line with a break away indicator and fish one Chironomid one foot off the bottom and a second Chironomid three feet up from the first.
It would be easier to just drop the line down with some weight on the end like Chan, but on calm days, I kinda like to watch that indicator.
We fly fished for spawning halibut in the queen charlets in 5 - 6 fathoms of water, so 30 to 36 feet of water possibly deeper.
Call me crazy but I switch to spinning gear if the fish are holding deeper than 10’ ft or so. Casting sinking lines sucks IMO and the cast is what fly fishing is all about IMO… Your opinion, obviously, might be different.
I have a intermediate line that I use for stripers but if I need to fish deeper than that I switch to regular fishing gear or stop fishing. :shock:
I rarely have ponds that have more than 15 feet of water in them. A few lakes are deeper.
I use a full sinking line with about a 5 foot leader.
I anchor the canoe and let the line fall for a long time. In fact I cast with another rod for a few minutes to make sure it is on the bottom.
I make sure all the flies I use doing this ride point up. Most have small dumbell eys to make this happen.
Not my favorite way to fish, but it is the only way I catch fish sometimes.
Rick
If they,re deeper than about six feet I call Boudreaux* and we do some “regler” fishin.
Mark
- see Cajun fishin post
Full sink line is different to cast and you do need a faster rod for it, but slowing your cast down, it really isn’t that hard. Just make bigger loops and I find going slightly to the side to be a little easier on the parts of my body that might come in contact with the flies. :lol:
I chose not to be a switch hitter, that way I can put all my spare change in FLY FISHING equipment. Plus the time I spend tying flies. I find a great joy in taking unusual situations and making my fly work. So far so good.
But, the truth of the mater is, I would probably look like a spaz trying to cast a spinning outfit after all these years
To be honest, I don’t know. I fish a lake with lots of deep water in it. Forty to sixty feet is the rule for most of the creek channels. Ninety to 120 feet is not rare. I let my fast sinking like go down until it hits bottom or it gets vertical in the water column. I leave the deeper channels to the bass boat guys and try to limit myself to 25-35 feet. I don’t enjoy fishing that way but when you find them, they’re big and numerous. 8T
Typically I don’t fish a fly any deeper than around 10’. That is typically for Pike and Bass in the fresh and then Striped Bass, Blues and bluewater species in the salt. That being said we have gone deep, VERY VERY deep a few times playing around with Snapper and Tuna. I have taken some Red Snapper on flies in the neighborhood 70 - 80’ down over a 100’ bottom. I’ve hooked and landed some Yellowfin Tuna down nearly 100’ in depths of 3000’ - 10,500’. Typically when the fish are this deep the long rods go away and we switch to conventional gear but a few times we have shrugged our shoulders and said “what the heck, let’s see how deep we can get them” : ) Doing this will full super heavy sinking lines and flies with Tungsten heads.
Most of the “deep” fishing I do is for Smallmouth Bass on Lake Erie and other lakes with long leaders and sinking lines fishing Clousers. This is typically in the 10 - 25’ range but the top 15 is where we focus.
Dr. Fish: I don’t know where you fish for Yellow Fin at those depths, but my Yellow Fin and a Blue Fin were all caught on the surface with a fast troll bait/jig fly. I have caught Lake Superior Mackinaw trout down in the 300 foot depths, but that was a 300 foot deep reef surounded by 1000 foot deep water. By the time you get a fish up from those depths, they are pretty done in. Halibut also like very deep water. You are right about the snapper, in off of the Oregon Coast they like the 100 to 200 foot depths.