Well I'll admit I am a bit embarrassed to ask this question, but hell that's what the board is for, right? Anyways I was out fishing the lower american last night and I was having a hell of a time getting my leech patterns tied with rabbit strips to sink, and I was having a hard time getting a few of my all marabou patterns to sink. Does anyone else have this problem? I even got the flies wet before I fished them and they were still giving me a problem... although after a while they began to sink better, but seemed like it took a while to get them to that point. I am relatively new to swinging flies, especially some of these bigger streamer patterns. Are there any tricks to this?
i had the same problem when i started tying up my own streamers, are you buying to tying. i have found a nice creation called lead wrap, it gets the streamers down great. that is your best bet, but if you are buying, it would say just put a single shot on there about 12"s above your streamer.
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Fishing isnt about catching fish, its not about who caught the most, or who caught the biggest, its about the experience that you have on the water, and the life long bonds you make with others on the journey to becoming a better person inside.
Natural fibers like rabbit and marabou will float until they are eventually saturated. You were correct to get your flies wet.
Try the following: Try using a shorter leader. Use 3 to 4 feet of leader material. For Steelhead, I usually use 8 to 12 pound Maxima Ultragreen. Use a sink tip line or add a weighted polyleader (versileader) to your floating line. After casting, mend your line a few times to allow the fly to sink before the line tightens up. Use flies that are weighted.
i have used the versa leader aka spey versas tips 15ft long this yr for steelhead and did very well, they are about 20 a pop, but if you dont want to buy a sink tip line this would be the way to go. you can buy several sink rates and change them with a quickness.
as far as leader, i am a big fan of 6-15lb mono, all my mono is berkley or stren. 12-15 lb mono (high impact stren) for swinging streamers flys and buggers (the high impact helps for abrassion resistance for swinging when hittin rocks and nicks, and i use 6-10 lb mono (berkley trilene) for nymphing 10lb for the main leader, 8lb to the first fly and 6lb to the second (i use berkley for the knot strengh and over all strength of the line). steelhead are not leader shy for the most part. i used mono a crap load this steelhead season and out fished many guys that used tippet.
i do how ever tend to switch over later in the winter and spring run if the fish have been hammered really bad, or they are being picky with my presentation or the plate that i am offering. i have notice a few times i would be using mono for a few hours with a glo bug and caddis pupah, with no takes then switch over to tippet with the same flys and immediatly start hammering fish, and then the next day go back to mono and do just as well.
hope this helps.
__________________
Fishing isnt about catching fish, its not about who caught the most, or who caught the biggest, its about the experience that you have on the water, and the life long bonds you make with others on the journey to becoming a better person inside.
Has anyone ever tried sink, its like gink floatent buts is suppose to help a fly sink. I haven't tried it but maybe it would help. I like to use a sinktip when swinging.
well the main difference is that tippet is about half the size of its mono counterpart, like 1x tippet is 10lb strength but half the diam or 10lb mono. as far as what is mono, its the line you would use for baitcasters, spinning gear. here are some brands of mono line berkley, stren, red cajun, fireline, p-line, maxima to name a few.
oh ya and its much cheaper than tippet, you will pay 4 dollars for 30-40yrds of tippet, and you can pay 4 dollars for 100 yrds of mono. and trust me you will go through a lot of mono steelhead fishing, so why not cheat a lil bit if you can, thats why i use mono most of the time for steelhead.
__________________
Fishing isnt about catching fish, its not about who caught the most, or who caught the biggest, its about the experience that you have on the water, and the life long bonds you make with others on the journey to becoming a better person inside.
P-line and Maxima are not monofilament, those are flourocarbon lines bro. And they are the best flourocarbons one can use, theres another awesome line out there called McCoy's mean green, that the best flourocarbon in my opinion. I read that alot of people use straight mono or flourocarbon as a leader for steelhead, Probably no need to waste money on tapered leaders for that type of fishing. Come on your not presenting a #20 dry on a spring creek
Here are a few replies not in any particular order.
Tippet: This is the terminal end of leader material tied to the of a leader. This material can be made of monofilament or flurocarbon (polyvinylidenfluoride). These are the same materials that can be spun onto conventional reels.
Maxima is a brand of leader material that is available in both monofilament and fluorocarbon. Maxima Ultragreen monofilament is very popular with the salmon and steelhead crowd (both fly and conventional).
Using leader material (tippet) instead of a tapered leader is common. For swinging flies, tie 3 to 4 feet of leader material to a butt section or loop. Whenever I fish pocket water, I use 10 to 12 feet of leader material. The consistent skinny diameter will cut through the water more efficiently than a tapered leader. Remember that pocket water nymph fishing doesn't require a pretty cast.
I have a bottle of Sink. I haven't used it yet.
I'm partial to Seaguar flurocarbon. Because it is softer on the exterior, it has the best knot holding strength, yet it still is very abrasion resistant.
Holy cow... this post was originally about getting flies to sink.
WT, you may want to view "Streamer Fishing for Trophy Trout" by Kelly Galloup. It's a really interesting video on streamer fishing. I was surprised by where Kelly says trophy trout hold in streams. It's quite eye-opening. He has a lot of interesting ideas about streamer fishing. For example, he doesn't believe in weighting most of his flies. I met him at the fly fishing show that used to be in San Rafael and he was very knowledgeable. Moreover, he was a really nice guy. I bought one of his books and he offerred to send me one of his streamer tapes if I just paid him for the postage (At the time I told him that I didn't own a DVD player and that's when he made the offer to send me a VHS tape). Anyway, his video is well worth buying or renting.
