Sinking Line Questions

[DocPow]

To be honest... I don't know what I don't know.

I want to have the option of fishing streamers in streams and small rivers. I have the Orvis Hydros Streamer Stripper line (5 wt, Class V Sinking Tip). I just don't know if it is getting my streamers down fast enough. I fish with some buddies in Potter and Tioga Counties who are spinning with Rapalas... They catch lots of trout on sinking Rapalas. I try many different streamers, but can't get the stockies (they prefer the stocked water) to take what I am throwing.

Should I consider a line that sinks faster? Or just put my fly rod away and get out my St. Croix UL spinning rod and throw some Rapalas? They like Asaph Run in Tioga County.

 

[wjkosmer]

For those types of streams, you are fine with a floating line. keep the leader short, weight your flies. If you need more weight, add a BB or two.

 

[Cold]

Full floating line + short leader = fishing closer to the surface.

If you want to get deep (how deep are we talking?) you need weight, either in the fly, on the leader, or in the line. The longer the sink tip, the shorter the leader you should use. The shorter (or absence of) the sink tip, the longer the leader you'll need, and the more weight you add, the faster you'll get down.

It's important to remember though that with any floating line, you're going to lose depth every time you attempt a mend or strip the line, as your line is on the surface, so any tension will be pulling your fly from wherever it is, toward the surface.

If you're wanting to fish in 3-4 foot deep water, your streamer stripper line should work okay. Try using a weighted streamer, and/or an ex. fast sinking poly-leader.

 

[wjkosmer]

^ guess i shouldn't have typed so fast, I meant keep the leader short if using the sinking line. Agree, lengthen with floating. I got the impression he was fishing smaller streams, which a sink tip will probably be overkill.

 

[DocPow]

Thanks, I get it! I will take some split shot.

 

[wjkosmer]

Typically my streamers are also weighted, depending on what type of action I'm looking for, and I also routinely add a shot or two. You will just have to adjust based on conditions as Cold mentioned above.

 

[troutbert]

Use split shot on the leader. Or use streamers with a conehead or barbell eyes.

But just understand that when flyfishing, you will not be able to compete with the numbers of trout caught by skilled spinfishers.

The two types of tackle are just different, and the results are different.

 

[DocPow]

Not so much competition... I usually could care less. Just would like to work on my streamer technique, and maybe bring one or two to net, LOL!

And the stream we will be fishing on one afternoon is smaller... I see you are in Williamsport so you may know the Asaph... were we fish is distinctly NOT scenic.

Thanx again

 

[fishngun]

To be honest I think the line you have is perfectly fine. I'd play with my leader lengths to change the depths my flies were riding at, as well as my retrieves. I'd be watching what my buddies were doing with their rapalas and also what color and size rapala they had success with and then I'd attempt to mimic that. Before blaming the gear, blame the technique.

 

[Cold]

Yeah, in simplest terms, you're not going to fish deep with fly gear like your buddies fish deep with spin gear...just two different animals.

You've got a Type 5 tip on the streamer stripper, so it's nearly as fast a sink tip as they make, but the 5' length is really short, so your fast sinking tip is being held back by the floating line behind it, which is ultimately robbing you of depth.

As far as a recommendation, it really depends on just how deep you are trying to go.

2' or less, just tie your streamers with some lead eyes and lead wire underbody...use a short (4') heavy leader...your heavy fly will sink to the bottom no problem and the sink tip with the short leader will help keep it there. Lots of stripping will still bring it back up, but you should be okay for most purposes.

2-4', I'd buy an ex. fast sink poly leader (you can get them from Rio or Airflo). A 5' poly leader will give you the equivalent of a 10' Type 5 sink tip, and again with your short leader and a heavy fly, you should be able to work at depths to 4' without too much difficulty. If you're not getting the whole way down, consider getting a longer 10-12' poly leader, still in that ex. fast sink rate, which should help separate the business end of the fly line from the floating portion with plenty of sinking line.

4-8', you're probably going to want to invest in a separate line if you're doing a lot of fishing down here. Either a bigger sink tip (24-30' head) or a full sinking line. At this point, keep your leader short still, but you have enough sinking line that you don't need the poly-leader and you don't need any weight on your flies if you'd rather fish unweighted streamers. In fact, a streamer designed to float is sometimes the way to go here, as your line sinks to the bottom, and each strip actually pulls the fly down, not up.

Deeper than 8', I'd just get out the spinning gear.

 

[Dave_W]

DocPow wrote:
I fish with some buddies in Potter and Tioga Counties who are spinning with Rapalas... They catch lots of trout on sinking Rapalas. I try many different streamers, but can't get the stockies (they prefer the stocked water) to take what I am throwing.

Should I consider a line that sinks faster?

Maybe.
For small streams I pretty much fish exclusively with floating lines for trout and I don't recommend sinking lines.

However, in bigger waters with current - think lower Pine or Little J - a sinking line does make streamer fishing more effective. I use heavy streamers to begin with, but the sinking line really pulls these flies under on long casts across current.

Don't know if you'll match your spin gear buddies on smaller trout waters.

 

[gulfgreyhound]

Add a poly sinking leader. Gets me down to bottom dredging when salmon and steely fishing. GG

 

[pcray1231]

Agreed. Lures aren't always the ticket, there are times you'll outfish them with fly gear as you can get a better drift as well as fish dries. But when lures are working, it's hard to replicate that kind of success with fly gear. Often the main factor is the speed of the retrieve. A moderate "reel" for them is a really, really fast strip for you.

On small streams, in summer, I actually consider fly gear a considerable advantage over spin gear. Though that's for wild fish. And the advantage is the lack of weight allows you to fish skinny water from a distance and from downstream. Each type of tackle has it's advantages and disadvantages in different situations. So what you have here is some spinning guys specifically choosing situations best approached with spinning gear. You could very easily take them elsewhere and see the tables turn, so to say. Anyway, sorry for the tangent.

Sink tip or sinking line, weighted streamer, some split shot in addition, and strip fast will get you the closest to what they are doing. Note that this isn't really "fly casting", with that much weight you're basically lobbing, and it's hard to be as accurate as a spinning rod and the open loops can cause issues with overhanging branches and such.

Personally, while I don't do it much, but I have an outfit where I took some backing off to make room, then use a full floating line with a 10 ft or so of lead core line attached to the business end. Does the job when streamer fishing. And you can just remove the sinking portion and be back to a floating line.

 

[fishngun]

I disagree with what pcray says about casting. With practice and an adjusted casting stroke, casting heavy flies or sink tip lines isn't really all that hard and it definitely isn't lobbing. You can become quite accurate while casting this stuff, but it isn't going to happen the first time you try. Part of it is the rod as well. In my opinion you aren't going to accomplish the above fishing with a noodle for a rod. The rod needs some balls and yet feel. Many of the fast rods today and so called broomsticks actually excel at these tactics.

 

[Six-Gun]

I think pcray is referring to using sink tip line with a weighted streamer and a good amount of split shot.

I have casted some VERY heavy rigs (like 8+ pieces of BB split shot) like that on the Green River in Utah during peak dam release and can say with certainty that it can be a LOT of weight. This was way more weight more than I would risk false casting with over one of my rods. A lob is exactly what you want to do to safely send that much junk airborne.

Rarely is that much mass needed. Your average small stream need little more than a dumbbell-eyed streamer. But in very swift, deep currents on a big river, sometimes there's just no substitute.