Saw T. Rosenbauer suggest attaching a sinking poly leader on the end of a floating line for getting streamers down fast w/o the need for changing lines. Wouldn’t a heavy fluorocarbon tippet do the same? The sinking poly tippets are a very expensive option IMHO.
Sinking poly leaders are much heavier than flourocarbon. They are more like a section of sinking fly line with an attached tippet.
Thanks for your help Jayatwork…
fritz -
My impression is that the weight of a piece of fluoro is determined only by its length and diameter. A longer, thicker piece will weigh more than a shorter, thinner piece, but both will only weigh a bit more than the amount of water that they displace. While a thicker piece will be “heavier” it won’t necessarily sink faster, and the thicker it is, the more surface it has may in fact cause it to sink slower because of the resistance of the water against its surface. It seeems that most folks who use fluoro for nymphing suggest using smaller ( thinner ) fluoro so it will sink faster.
Poly leaders incorporate tungsten, and the sink rate is determined by the amount of tungsten as a proportion of the overall leader. Sink rates typically run from about an inch or inch and a half per second through about seven inches per second, with interval sink rates stepping up about an inch per second from the lower end. It is the amount of tungsten, which is clearly much heavier than fluoro, that is the key to poly leaders getting streamers ( and anything else ) down faster.
As to the expense, if you put a tippet ring or small swivel at the tip end of the poly leader, you only have to change out tippet as necessary and the leader itself will last for quite some time. Probably well worth the expense if you like using the same floating line for a variety of fishing approaches.
John
P.S. I personally prefer a full sinking line for fishing streamers. But some folks prefer floating lines because picking them up and casting them is easier for them, and that seems particulary true for people fishing from drift boats and rafts.
A few days ago, a fellow from Canada posted an interesting YouTube video on the use of poly leaders, split shot and weighted flies, which may be of interest to you, fritz, or others who want some additional information on the question you posed.
Go to YouTube, go to its search function, and look for hooked4lifeca. Once you get to this fellow’s “video index” scroll down until you find the title poly leaders vs split shot vs weighted flies. The video is rather long, but well worth the time for someone wanting or needing some good information on these subjects.
John
For some information on a potential alternative to the poly leader thing, check out Rio Products’ video on versileaders on YouTube.
John
P.S. Thank you, fritz, for the occasion to get back into looking at some of these products, which I have been generally aware of, but haven’t really kept up with for some time. And I suspect some of the other BB members and visitors to the BB might benefit also from the brief discussions herein.
Yes John Scott, i have seen hooked4life.ca videos and they have been very helpful. I was on the river last week fishing weighted streamers and because the waters were about 2 feet deep, I didn’t feel the need to use a poly leader but will consider using them in deeper waters. Thanks for your helpful suggestions and insights.
Had a Private Message from a B.B. member who would rather be in Wyoming that makes no sense at all, but that is not unusual for that person. To quote:
“Trust that it took ALL the self control I could muster to not comment on your obvious command of the topic of “sinking leaders”. You and all who voted for this POS and the HO should be prosecuted for TREASON.”
If anyone can enlighten me on what “HO” might mean, I certainly would appreciate it. Thanks.
John
… at myself for how I read the P.M. referenced above. I took the phrase “sinking leaders” to refer to the various methods of getting streamers down when fishing mentioned in the earlier posts on this thread. A subject, by the way, on which I have no command, just a limited familiarity.
So I took the words “this POS” to also refer to the thread that fritz started and wondered what an “HO” is and who were all the folks that “voted” for the thread ?? The thought of prosecuting that small group of people “for TREASON” is what absolutely made no sense at all.
Anyway, after scratching my head for a while and considering who it was that sent me the P.M., I had to laugh at myself. The only sense I could make of the message is …
… the “sinking leader” refers to POTUS Joe Biden …
…the "POS ( piece of sh*t ) also refers to POTUS Joe Biden …
…“you and all who voted for” Biden, meaning me ( and how would anyone know who I voted for ) and the other 80,000,000 who voted for Biden …
… should be prosecuted for TREASON, which is a crime defined in the Constitution of the United States with a meaning that could no way apply to Americans who exercised their right to vote.
So, if my second take on the P.M. is correct, the person who sent it ( who is more than welcome to come forward on this thread and confirm or clarify that take ) is a lunatic. ( Since I haven’t identified that person, I can’t be accused of “flaming”, right ? )
So let’s think through the lunacy, assuming Americans exercising their right to vote can be prosecuted for treason - 80,000,000 people are going to be prosecuted for treason. By how many prosecutors and their staffs, and defended by how many attornies and their staffs. In how many courts. With how many judges and assorted court support persons. With 80,000,000 twelve person juries. Over how long a period of time. And how many children would be without one or more parents for how long ? And who would be responsible for their care ? How many employers would suffer the loss of employees and how many businesses would close with 80,000,000 people at some stage of prosecution for treason, how many personal and business bankruptcies would result from the process. What would the economy look like during and after the 80,000,000 folks and all those lawyers, judges and juries were tied up for how long. That is the lunacy of the idiotic, hateful, deranged message sent to me by a fellow B.B. member, who appears to be a seriously damaged individual.
So that’s why I was laughing. At the same time, I pity the lunatic who sent the P.M. What a terrible life one must have to be in such a place.
John
P.S. I still don’t have a clue what the “HO” means.
WOW! Didn’t know this thread was going to bring out the ghouls and goblins hidden in the stream beds…“HO” (no clue about its meaning either)
fritz -
After consulting my dictionary and trying to put in context the words “the HO”, the only thing I can conclude is that the words are intended to say that Vice President Harris is a whore.
If it were only so simple as a ghoul or a goblin - but it is a real lunatic who sent that Private Message.
The thing that really stuns me, is that I come on here to help you out on a question you asked, and maybe some other B.B. members or visitors who would benefit from my comments or the resources I identified, and the lunatic takes the opportunity to come forth from the slime to insult me and a bunch of other B.B. members among the 80,000,000 who voted for Biden, and is too cowardly to do it in the open.
John
Sorry that it happened to you John. You have always been helpful.
Rick
Rick -
Not to worry. The private messager involved here has a history on this site of inviting or initiating conflict with any number of B.B members. But I doubt that he will be sending me any more private messages or engaging with others in such manner again.
Interestingly, that person recently observed that “the best flyfishing/politics forum, FAOL”. Other than the fact that this person has said numerous time that he is not a fly angler and definitely is not a fly tyer, he seems to not understand that this is not a “politics” forum.
John
And you’re wrong again,
I do recall an astute and erudite member of this forum, and on this OPEN forum, referring to you as an “A HOLE” for making a disparaging POLITICAL , uncalled for comment regarding MY PRESIDENT, DONALD TRUMP . I , as I did then, do wholeheartedly agree with his assessment.
Mark
PS: And HOW CAN I FORGET ? … GO BRANDON !!!
I remember the day when I used to roll my eyes over the inanity of threads that asked what everyone thought was the best kind of net, which line was best, etc., etc. (conveniently forgetting of course that I had asked many similar questions when I started).
Now I long for those times when there was at least one corner of the Internet where an “inane” question could be posed without it being turned into an opportunity for political flamethrowing.
Suggesting that 80,000,000 Americans be prosecuted for treason for exercising their right to vote is idiotic, hateful, and deranged.
In the meantime, I had a really good day today fishing in rather chilly conditions on a northern Idaho freestone creek. Somewhere around 20 fishies playing with a variety of my original patterns - most went for an FEB stonefly, and then they pretty much evenly split on an FEB October caddis, a mahogony dun emerger, and a JARS nymph.
Didn’t use a poly leader - the homebrew thread furled leader did just fine, for both the dry flies and the wet ones.
John
I so remember that fly! Fly of the Week … June 2, 2012 … The furled extended body October Caddis! Ha! Back in the real days of FAOL, when you didn’t have to worry about porn on your messages, or political nonsense, or deranged put downs of anyone who doesn’t think the same as him. Thank you, John for the great memories, and the continued fly fishing material on this site.
Also, this is not an open forum for politics. Politics are verboten … read the site rules. This is a fly fishing site … the best there is.
Ditto Betty…and Thank You…
…lee s.
… Betty, the FEB O.C. was an FAOL FOTW, as were the other three mentioned in my earlier post on fishing the other day.
Those four are among twelve or thirteen original flies presented for the FOTW articles years ago, and are in the Archives, mostly in 2012 and 2013, as I recall. A couple of them demonstrated fly tying methods that I haven’t seen anywhere else - the JARS and Duck’s Green Drake, for example, have tails incorporated into an FEB, and a couple others demonstrated the 9DH aka 90 degree hackling technique. On the latter, a couple years ago I ran into a fellow who had been fly tying for 30 plus years, had published a number his own flies, who had never seen that technique, but understood it and took to it immediately.
Getting back to poly leaders, the only time I have even touched one was a couple months ago. I ran into a couple of guys, one from Texas and the other from North Carolina, fishing on my home water. The fellow from Texas remembered meeting me a year earlier at exactly the same place. The fellow from North Carolina had never been to Idaho nor fished for trout. We got into an hour long discussion about the essentials of fishing for trout on moving water compared to stillwater fishing for bass, during which time he handed me a poly leader sold to him by a Missoula fly shop, for something like $17. Shame on them.
I provided the North Carolinian with a furled leader, suggested that he return the poly leader and get his bucks back, gave him an FEB Salmonfly and directions to the six most likely places on the river where he had a decent chance of getting into some cutthroats. It’s what some of us fly anglers and fly tyers out here do to help a stranger be successful and have some fun during his / her visit.
John
… to 2007, for another FAOL FOTW. The first original fly I submitted to the FOTW was the t.c.t.k. aka ten cent trout killer. This one was submitted before I became a BB member. The funniest thing about it was - it became the subject of four or five different threads, one of the simplest flies ever tied and one of the most discussed FOTW flies ever on the Bulletin Board.
Anyway, it came full circle from way back when to a slightly modified version today, in a couple different ways.
Fishing was so good the other day, I decided to play tag with an FEB Salmonfly today, at least to get started. My home water hasn’t fished at all well this year, to the point that I have been considering not buying a license next year. So today, which may be my last day this year there, the fishing was incredible. In the first hour and a quarter, about thirty fishies hit the pointless fly. A few of them did have the audacity to get stuck on the bend of the hook but were good enough to shake it off in a matter of seconds, so I could get back to my role in playing tag.
After that first hour and a quarter, I decided to change it up. The slightly modified t.c.t.k. simply had a bead head added to the original version thread on a Dai-Riki 135 in size 16 fly. Well, that fly, which I’ve only fished a couple times on my home water before, landed five fishies, before it broke off landing the last one.
Since I didn’t have any more t.c.t.k.s with me, I went with a very small flashback P.T. gifted to me by BB member tedshuck a couple years ago. That little guy fly added several more to the daily count. And that is how the t.c.t.k. came full circle - ted’s flashback was tied on a hook that was one of a couple hundred size 16 and 18 135s that I gave to him because I only paid ten bucks for the lot of them and knew that I wasn’t going to use them any more.
Finally, a few fish started rising to a very light hatch of mahogany duns so I went back to the PT MDE 9DH and caught another five fishies before the last one, a really fat, healthy, fiesty 17" west slope cutthroat took the fly so deep I had to break it off to release him.
So now the question is whether I will get another annual license for my home water next year ? Or is it that I have to tie up some more t.c.t.k.s ?
John