Struggling with weight

[reelinron]

I am a very experienced fisherman, but kind of new to fly fishing. I had a fly tying course years ago and with the help of utube am tying flies for my upcoming retirement. Presently I am tying pheasant tail nymphs #16. Plan on tying green weenies, rabbit hair nymphs, wooly buggers and copper johns.

My dilemma is I have never weighted flies and am confused about whether to wrap lead, use beads, or use split shot on flies with no weight.

I will mostly be fishing SE PA stockies next season and eventually hit some central PA streams once retired.

Any help appreciated. Any thoughts on hook size for the above flies for PA would be welcome also.

Thanks, ron

 

[duckfoot]

Congratulations on retirement. I cannot wait for the day I can do that myself!

From what I understand, how you weight nymphs is completely up to you. Some guys like to make them without weight and then weight the line with shot as necessary, and some people (like me) love nymphs that sink like a rock.

I'm partial to Copper Johns for this reason. A bead + lead + copper wrappings makes for a great sink.

Most everyone agrees that nymphs only work when you're occasionally getting them snagged, so make sure they get to the bottom.

 

[redietz]

reelinron wrote:
My dilemma is I have never weighted flies and am confused about whether to wrap lead, use beads, or use split shot on flies with no weight.

All of the above. It will depend on the fly. You probably don't want to use lead wraps on a pheasant tail, because it will make it too fat. Bead heads work for the PT, though, as does tying the way Frank Sawyer did in the first place (google it, but basically it's tied with copper wire rather thread. Also look at the Grey Goose and the Killer Bug.) And tie some unweighted; they can be very effective fished in the film at times, and you won't have that option if you weight the fly. You can always add shot if needed.

I almost always put lead wire under the chenille on a green weenie. Also use the heaviest wire hook you can find. You might want to consider lead eyes on the wooly bugger.

Lots of options. Most are viable, but think about what you want a particular fly to do.

 

[jeremymcon]

I absolutely hate fishing with split shot on my leader, so I'm always sure to have plenty of beadhead nymphs in my box. I use tungsten beads and brass beads so that I can change up how heavy the fly is depending on the water I'm fishing. I try to only buy tungsten beads of a certain color (grey and copper, for example) and brass beads of only certain colors (gold and black painted), but it doesn't always work out that way. Sometimes I get a really good deal on gold tungsten beads that I can't pass up. Usually once the fly is tied onto the end of my leader though, I can tell it's a tungsten bead when I try to cast.

I also tie large, heavy patterns for when I need a *lot* of weight - mostly big tunsten bead stoneflies or large (#8-10) czech style woven caddis patterns with big tungsten beads and some lead-free wire wrapped under the body. I tie one of these on and fish two nymphs if I also want to fish a smaller fly that I can't pack as much weight on.

 

[1hook]

It's all preference. I tie some bigger nymphs with weight but honestly I tie the majority of my nymphs without beads and weight. In my head I feel like they will have a better drift if they aren't sinking like a rock. More natural I guess. I don't know if there is anything to that or not.
I think I have more flexibility then too cause I can put them in the surface film off a dry or I can get them deep with shot.

I don't mind adding and removing shot to achieve the desired spot in the water column... That's part of the Nymphing game.

 

[WildTigerTrout]

I very seldom weight my flies and when I do I use beadheads. If I need to go deeper than I will also add split shot to my line. Unweighted flies are more versatile IMO.