I’m interested weighting flies so I need information of how much weight to use, best type of weight to use, and position of weight for desired depths such as slow sinking, intermediate depth, and fast sink flies. The flies I’m thinking of tyeing are for lakes and ponds.
Hobo
You can use brass or tungeston bead heads to get flies down.
You can also wrap wire on the hook shank to get the flies to drop.
The bigger the bead the faster they will drop.
Bead chain and cyclops eys can also be used to weigh flies.
The size you use depends on what you want to do with them.
Rick
It really depends on the fly and how I intend to use the fly. For scuds in a couple of lakes, I use tungsten and wire (lead free). I also tie buggers with lead free wire and bead heads (not usually tungsten though). If I am tying for swaps…it is definetely brass bead heads and lead free wire. I have decided to forget about about using lead wire since I might have the urge to fish Yellowstone NP where lead is pretty much forbidden.
I rarely use full sink lines…I like to have the ability to change to a dry without having to change spools on my reel. For this reason…I prefer using tungsten with wire. If I am using floating line, then I use a 9’ leader and can change flies as the situations change.
I love to tie buggers with Spirit River’s Dazzle eye (not sure of the exact name LOL) instead of bead chains, heavier and the fly drops faster than a standard bead chain.
I prefer to fish stillwaters for cutts and brookies, as a result sometimes fishing 10’ deep is prefferable (especially brookies once the water starts to warm up…usually 3-4 weeks after ice-out).
Personally this my two cents…hope this helps you out some.
I’m lazy, so I’ve quit tying the same fly 2 or 3 different ways - without weight, with a bead head, with weight and a bead head, etc. I also don’t much like using split shot. Now I tie all my nymphs and wets weightless and just thread a bead head on the tippet above the fly if I want it to get a little deeper. It doesn’t work all the time (split shot is needed sometimes), but tying them all the same is a lot simpler.
Joe
Hi hobo,
Ditto to Rick. I figure that about half my flies are unweighted and the other half weighted in one of the ways Rick gave. Since most of my weighted are beadchain or beadhead, the weight is forward near the hook eye to get a jigging type of action. In addition to the metal beads Rick mentioned, don’t forget glass beads.
I use a good bit of bead heads in both metal and glass beads. I use bead chain, hour glass etc. for the descent. I also use lead wrapping on hooks, but what I’m looking into is how or where to position lead on a fly to make a fly descend straight, (like floating down the water column), or head first, or rear first. I know there has got to be info. on how to wrap weight to accomplish this to a fly.
Hobo
Get a tall gla ss and fill it with water. Tie a fly and see how it drops in the water.
Tie some tippet tothe fly and you can see hows it drops with the line on it.
If you have access to a pool you might be able to try it there.
Rick
Hobo,
Here’s the ‘problem’ with all this.
There are many different factors that will effect ‘how a fly sinks’.
The ones that have nothing to do with the fly itself are:
The thickness and density of the tippet. Having to pull the tippet with the fly as it sinks(something we can’t get away from, it HAS to be tied to the line to fish with it) always causes some ‘nose up’ pressure to the fly. Finer and denser tippet materials will help to lessen this.
The type of knot used to attach the fly to the tippet. A knot that is clinched tightly to the eye will often have more of an effect on the ‘attitude’ the fly sinks at than where a fly is weighted. Using a ‘tight’ knot and any tippet over 6X will effectively stop the ‘nose down’ or ‘jigging action’ that is often desired from a bead head fly. The tippet is ‘too stiff’ under water for the weight of the bead to overcome and ‘bend’ so the fly points nose down. You can alleviate this by using a loop knot (something you should do with ANY fly hat you want maximum movement from)
Tension on the tippet as the fly settles. If you have any tension on the tippet as the fly sinks, it will keep the eye of the hook pointed at, and generally in line with, the tippet. This will also cause the fly to sink in a curve rather than straight down. If you want a fly to sink straight down, something that is VERY desirable for bass fsihing, you need to learn to cast badly (let your cast ‘colaspe’ so that the leader piles rather than straightens out). This lets your fly sink relatively straight down in still water.
Water movement due to wind, wave, or current. If current of any kind is present, it will cause immediate drag on the tippet, the fly, the fly line, etc., causing the same things as above. This is something you can not control. Moving water effects all objects in it based on their bouyany, density, and crossection. The speed of the current and the size/weight/SHAPE of the fly will have a signifiant impact on how a fly sinks in moving water.
Also, it’s not only weight, but ‘drag’ that can alter how a hook falls through the water. A soft hackle fly that’s unweighed will always fall hook bend down (without other factors considered) due to the drag of the hackle. You can use this, in addition to weight, to get a fly to fall or move in varying ways in the water.
Unfortunately, there are way to many variables to this equation, so the only way to ‘know’ for any particular fly that you tie is a combination of the obvious (put weight at the tail, it ‘should’ sink tail down) and ‘testing’ the fly under conditions similar to how you plan to fish it.
Good Luck!
Buddy
I agree. I use a Duncan Loop Knot (Uniknot) so the fly is slightly free moving to give me the jigging action. The knot tightens automatically when the fish bites and puts tension on the tippet.
For my floating line I use standard mono tippet (mainly for surface flies) that is not such a good thing when I want to use subsurface flies as it takes more time for the tippet to sink (unless I use weighted flies or there is wind current) unlike fluorocarbon that I use for my sinking line. Sometimes I just give the standard mono tippet a good initial (right after the cast) line strip to not only straighten the fly line for detecting bites but to get the tippet under a little faster (this is especially true when I use unweighted wet flies). In an ideal world, I would change tippets on the floating line from mono to fluoro :). I do not use a loop to loop system for my freshwater leaders because there is usually just too much trash and weeds in the water so I use knotted (small knots) leaders. I use a Nailless Nail Knot from the butt section to fly line and an Albright Special Knot (note the “Special” as it is not a standard Albright Knot) from the butt to tippet.
Here is a link that might help for wrapping and weighting flies:
[url=http://www.tie1on.net/weight.htm:d091b]WEIGHTING FLIES[/url:d091b]
I want to thank everyone for the thought put into this thread. I’ll do some more research and see if it’s worth the trouble to do what I am hoping with my flies.
Hobo
Hobo - I have heard of one more way to add weight to the fly, and it’s done supposedly to affect how the hook rides (up or down). I haven’t tried this, but others may have and can “WEIGH” in on the idea. Some people cut pieces of lead wire off and tie them on top of the shank, as opposed to wrapping the shank. This sort-of keel-weights the fly and causes it to ride hook-up, as the extra weight on top flips the fly over on its back. Like I said, I have never done this but I have heard about it. I usually carry some weighted flies along with my unweighted ones. I add a little tag of different colored yarn if I want to differentiate weighted versus unweighted. It never seems to affect the patter, but I tie and fish warmwater, and fish more attractant type flies. - Hope that helps your quest for info!
Gary
Over here, the fly tying materials suppliers have sticky backed fine lead sheet, which is very useful for weighting flies. A narrow strip can be wrapped around the shank without making the body too bulky. I have not seen it in any US suppliers catalogue.
If you want info on beads, both Hook & Hackle and Orvis , have useful info on bead sizes for hook sizes.
Here is Hook & Hackles page.
http://www.hookhack.com/miscellaneous2.html
and here is Orvis.
http://www.orvis.com/store/product_dire … %5Fid=6479
I have done this and it does work. Its just another method for positioning weight. Positioning the weight at various points on the hook shank does make a difference in fly action and how much weight is put on the hook for sink rates.