| #1  02-04-2005, 08:02 AM | ||||
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 Fly Lines Hi all, I thought I would pass on a tip on fly lines. When fishing from a boat...drifting Loch style with the wind, some people find it difficult to "know" how deep their flies are fishing or when they should "pick up" the line and re-cast. This tip should help on both counts. 1. Take your fly line measure back 20 feet from the tip and mark it with a marker pen, then from that mark measure back another 10 feet and mark it, then measure another 10 feet and mark it. So in all you have 3 marks each 10 feet apart. 2. Then take some tying thread...the finer the better I use 14/0 and wrap it round the line where the first mark has been made. These should be close touching turns and no bumps. Then seal with super glue or varnish. 3. Now do the same at the other marks except this time change the colours at each mark. So the first one could be red, second Fluo yellow and the third Fluo green. Now when you fish the flies back to you from a boat the third mark is the first to come to the hand through the rings and if you are using a 10 foot rod the tip of the fly line is 30 feet away from you, the second is 20 feet away. If you change the distance from the tip of the line say first 10 feet away second another 10 feet, then the amount of line still out in the water changes. To show how effective it can be...I once fished a competition between my regular boat partner and I and we had anchored up in 63 feet of water. We both used DI7's with 3 boobies in 3 different colurs. His leader was 15 feet long mine was 25 feet long but our flies were equally spaced the same distance apart. I know the sink rates of my fly lines so its useful to know this...and my pal was trying to fish off the bottom. I fished my 3 flies in the following way. Cast a full line, count to 20/30..... fast figure of 8 retrieve then stop for 3-5 seconds, then strip retrieve until the first marker came to the tip of the rod, then figure of 8 back to the boat. One of three things happend, I either got a take while I was figure of 8 retrieving or when the the retrive stopped or when stripping it back. By my reckoning I was fishing the flies between 20 to 25 feet down and back through the water column through to 8 -10 feet down. Most of the takes where coming in the 20 -25 foot region. My pal struggled to catch fish and keep up...he bought the beers back at the pub!! I did reveal the "method" to him later in the day when i knew he had no chance of catching me up  so as not to spoil his day.More tips to come...... __________________ Eventually all things merge into one, and a River runs through it. Old Smoothy |Shoot and fish .com |Fishing Holidays | Fly Fishing Tuition     |
| #2 02-04-2005, 08:22 AM | ||||
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| Re: Fly Lines Nice one Smoothy - a lot of really useful info and well written  Quote:
__________________ * <0((fluff))< " 90% of the fish are in 10% of the water " |
| #3 02-04-2005, 08:49 AM | ||||
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| Re: Fly Lines Great read mate - I cannot believe that Im now starting to understand fly fishing __________________ Richard|Sea Fishing |Carp Fishing| Spud Gun | Zander fishing | Fishing Reports | Hunting Reports |
| #4 02-07-2005, 11:44 AM | |||
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| Re: Fly Lines Its a great idea Smoothy, marking the fly line so you know how much is 'out there', but do you find that the thread whipped sections on your line cause any problems when shooting line in casting ? Can you explain a bit about how you calculated your depth guesstimate ? If the boobys are bouyant and on a long leader, they'll be presenting above the line tip won't they ? I've never been too sure about the depth I've been fishing at since so many factors (speed of retrieve must have quite an effect) seem to affect the presentation depth. Thanks |
| #5 02-07-2005, 12:58 PM | ||||
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 Re: Fly Lines Quote:
The addition of a 14/0 thread wrapped and sealed with a small amount of varnish has absolutely no effect on the distance a fly line is cast. But view it this way: 1. Your fly line does not go down in a straight line, A DI7/DI8 goes down in an arc sort of elongated "U" shape and is probably the fastest sinking line on the market maybe save for a deep water express, but a DI7/8 has no stretch so you "feel" everything. 2. As the line falls throught the water it starts to straighten out tip first, if you still have hold of it in your hand and you have not started to retrieve. 3. The booby nearest the tip of the line, is the fly that is going to be the deepest and therefore fish the deepest. 4. The idea of a long leader say 25 feet is this, the bob fly fishes the deepest, so that is the one you use as a marker when counting down for depth purposes, the middle dropper is say 4 feet from the bob fly and 5-6 feet from the tip of the fly line, the point fly fishes the shallowest and therefore is the last fly to come back up through the water column. 5. Whe you retrieve back towards you in the boat, the flies come back up in an arc, so the faster you retrieve the more chance you have of fishing your flies at depth because the bob fly comes back up first and then the fly line starts to straighten out, then the middle fly and finally the point fly. 6. If you stop for ten seconds the flies start to fall back through the water column and therfore the point and middle flies fish shallower...as you have already retrieved them. So stop start is a good way of fishing this method. 7. Exact depth is not an absolutely crictical factor...getting as many flies down to the feeding depth is and in particular in the Trouts window of vision and feeding. They will move several feet in clear water to intercept an offering that looks good to them! The idea of marking your fly line is to give you a "Base line" to work from. I hope this helps. __________________ Eventually all things merge into one, and a River runs through it. Old Smoothy |Shoot and fish .com |Fishing Holidays | Fly Fishing Tuition |
| #6 02-10-2005, 08:39 AM | |||
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| Re: Fly Lines Thanks Smoothy, I understand where you're coming from, and appreciate its not an exact science. I've always looked at fly lines and depth like this; Floating line and floating fly - surface feeding. As above, but with maybe intermediate polyleader and weighted fly, fishing the top 1-1.5 feet. Maybe the top three feet or so with a sink tip or intermediate fly line. Then, using a Di 5 (although a real 'depth charge' type would be best) and a bouyant point fly (maybe a booby, or a foam bodied fry pattern) and a nymph dropper, cast and let the line sink to the bottom (waiting a minute or so), try different leader lengths until you meet with some response (usually weed I find). I guess it helps knowing how deep the water is (and I mostly fish small still waters, with never more than about 20-odd feet of depth) and having never been 'down there' to see how the presentation is, I guess you can never be sure. The sinking and counting method obviously covers the depths between and somehow I've never got to grips with this 'middle' bit. Thanks for the technique explanation. |
| #7 05-07-2007, 10:21 AM | |||
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| Re: Fly Lines Hi all, Not many of us can cast 30yds with a 25ft leader. What tackle do you use, long rod, tapered leader and how do you net a fish with a 25ft leader ????. Boat fishing is very expensive. I fish Bewl Water reservoir 3 times a week from the bank. What is your favorite method of bank fishing --- but no 25ft leaders please. Best regards, DBM. |
| #8 12-11-2007, 02:53 AM | |||
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| Re: Fly Lines Floating Lines Floating lines are actually quite versatile in that you can use them for presenting dry flies as well as fishing nymphs or insect larvae from just sub surface to deep in the water column. The limiting factors on how deep you can fish with the floating line is leader length and the angler's patience to wait for the fly pattern to sink to the desired fishing depth. In reality, floating lines are effective when fishing water to about 5 to 6 metres deep with leaders as long as 7 metres in length. Most anglers will find leaders longer than that extremely difficult to cast. |
