I’m rather new to fly fishing and have been wondering if it would be a worth while to invest in a spare spool with sinking line or would sink tips be a better option. I mostly fish for rainbows on the Current river and after making the season opener I realized just how hard it was to get to the depth the fish are feeding with floating line. Thanks for any advice.
There are 3 options
A) A Full sinking line (rarely used in moving water, more of a lake thing…though the odd guy does use full sinking for streamers up here in canada)
B) A Floating/Sinktip Line. This is setup like any other fly line, with no junctions between the floating and sinktip
C) Loop to Loop Sink-Tip Connections: this is what i use, i have 6 different sink tips (how fast they sink, and length is what determines them). I do this because i only have to carry a sinktip wallet, instead of having to have an extra spool set up.
Casting is easier with a full sinking, and a traditional F/S line. However, the convience of having sink tips (connected by loop to loop) is hard to beat, especially in changing water conditions, depth, etc
Cougar,
You’re gonna eventually want them all. What you need to figure out is which to start with…
Start with the interchangeable tips. Easy, less expensive, a bit of a chore in the casting department, but effective. It will help you learn which sink rates willwork best under the conditions you ace in your every day fishing.
Since you mostly fish moving water, a spare spool with a sink tip line would be a nice addition…once you learn the water and develope an understanding of when (both in time of year and water/weather conditions) it would be more beneficial to fish with a sinking tip. They come in many different sink rates and tip lengths, you’ll need to know which will work best for your application (current speed, river depth, casting ability, and fly selection/preferred rigging all play a part is the ‘which line’ equation).
You will probably end up with several diferent sink tip lines. It’s normal to own two or three of them unless you always fish the same way or same place every time…
Full sinking lines are primarily lake lines (one of these days you are likely to want to fish in a lake, and you’ll need a couple of these). Again, different sink rates and other choices. Once you get to this, a good start is an ‘intermediate’ (goes by lots of other names, it sinks slowly, just enough to get you under the surface but you can get it down as deep as you want with patience) and a fast sink (for when you want to fish right down near the bottom or faster at medium depths). Again, eventually you’ll run into situations where you’ll want to have other lines with different sink rates. Buy them as the need arises.
There are applications for full sinking lines in rivers. You may run across one or more of them. If you already own a few sinking lines in different densities, you can adapt as needed.
There are really two ways to ‘figure out’ which lines are the ‘best’ for any particular body of water or set of conditions. One is trial and error. Works really well, eventually. Or, you can learn from others. Watch, ask polite questions, listen (you can also make some amazing friends this way).
Good luck.
Buddy
Buddy
cougarss2 …
Another option that you might want to check into is Airflow Poly leaders.
They are 5, 8 or 10 foot pieces of leader with loops installed and the can be purchased to sink at different speeds. (You just loop to loop them onto your existing floating line.)
Very cheap compared to purchasing a new line and extra spool.
See: http://www.flylines.com/Flylines_Polyleaders_Freshwater.cfm
Cougar -
You’ve already got some really good input from Brent, Buddy, and Dick.
I’ve got some ideas about the general subject, but I’m wondering what the Current River is like and what kind of flies you are fishing. Nymphs or streamers ??
Generally, the rivers I fish are moderate, fairly consistent currents, and medium depth, up to maybe three to four feet in the runs. Weighted nymphs get down where it counts, fished off a floating line under an indicator.
For streamers, I like a Class II full sinking line with unweighted streamers. The full sinking line casts easier, for me, than a floating line, and much, much easier than a sink tip, whether as a sink tip line or a sinking tip added to a floating line, both of which I have used.
If you are fishing water that has a lot of different currents as the cross section, then a floating line with a sink tip can offer some advantages in avoiding drag, if that is something you want to do, since you can mend to adjust for the currents, which is almost impossible with a full sinking line.
Hope this helps.
John
Thanks for all the info, its nice to find a site like this to learn from others.
I started out with the approach of carrying a spare spool with a sink tip line on it. What I realized at some point was that that could create some limitations. For starters, I fish rods of all different line weights, so at least in theory, I was going to have to have spare spools with sink tip lines suiteable for 4 wts., 6 wts., 8 wts., etc. Not a huge deal I guess, and I did that initially, but then came the realization that sometimes I wanted/needed different length sink tips. What I did this past year was buy a couple of the 12’ Cortland lead core sink tips and cut them into two odd lengths. They can be 8’ and 4’, 7’ and 5’, etc. The package comes with four loops that you put on, and I figure with this set up, I can fish either of the two shorter lengths by themselves or loop them together for the longer length. The upshot is, no spare spool required and I can go from a floating line to one of three different sink tip configurations. Within reason, these same tips can be used on a couple different line weights as well.