There really isn't a whole lot of difference in how you retrieve a streamer with an intermediate line and a floating line. I use a steady quick strip when retrieving a streamer with a floating line and the same retrieve with an intermediate line.
These are just an observations. I fish unweighted or lightly weighted streamers. If I fish them with a floating line, I let the streamer sink, then start my retrieve. The fly is going to rise toward the surface, and run shallow on the retrieve, maybe a foot or so down, depending on how I'm holding my rod.
With a sinking line, mine, I think sinks at 4 inches per second, the line is going to continue to sink as I retrieve it, unless I really increase the speed of my retrieve
An intermediate line. Do you know how fast your line sinks? If you still have the box, it should be on it. I just picked up a new intermediate for my 8 wgt. It sinks at 1 1/4 inches per second. You can actually fish top waters with them. I like to fish sliders, foam spiders and crease flies with them. So you can count down how deep you want to start fishing it. With an unweighted fly or bait fish pattern I can get a fairly level retrieve.
How fast or slow you retrieve is going impact the action, also the weight of the fly. Because when you strip retrieve the fly there's always going to be a pause. When you pause, the fly's going to sink, and it's going to rise on the next strip. So you're going to get an up and down motion with the fly. The length of the pause and the weight of the fly will impact how radical the up and down motion is. A lot of times you'll get a hit during the pause as the fly sinks. Experiment, vary the speed and length of the pause in your retrieve. The bass will let you know which one they like. Make sense? I'm sure more folks will chime in with advice.
