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Fly lines for trout river fly fishing. Floating and sinking lines information for trout fishing.
Fly Lines for Trout River Fishing Fly lines are classified in this fashion: a double taper line for careful dry fly, upstream work; and a torpedo head line for long range casting, especially for steelhead and Atlantic salmon. The level fly line is obsolete, with little justification for its use. Those are the generalizations. There are many exceptions. Dou ble-taper fly lines, for example, are probably the most useful of any type fly line for general fishing. There are few stream situations in which they are not as good as other fly lines, if not superior to them. They are far superior for delicate dry fly work, and they also serve admirably for wet flies, streamers, and nymphs. How far can a fly be dropped with a double-taper fly line? Wouldn't a torpedo head line better serve a fisherman who has occasional casts of fifty to sixty feet? The answer is "no," unless there are more than just occasional casts requiring fifty feet or more for distance. At distances less than sixty feet, a double-taper fly line will serve admirably. Most anglers, unfortunately, place too much emphasis on distance in fly fishing, and not enough on delicacy. Those long casts of sixty, eighty, and a hundred feet sound wonderful in the telling. Rela tively few, however, will produce fish which cannot be taken better by careful wading and the more delicate presentation obtained by shorter casts. Long casts have been overemphasized by angling writers since the discovery of the torpedo head lines. I recall the concern of an Eastern trout fisherman over his ability to make those long shots he thought were required to take steelhead on the Rogue River. I assured him that most steelhead fishermen would envy him his careful, precise presentation, perfected on brown trout in Pennsylvania. But he was dubious. Next day, though, it was a different story. Instead of finding his Eastern trout technique, with its short delicate casts, a handicap, he was high rod in our party. I doubt if he made a cast over fifty-five feet all day. By carefully studying the approach to those pockets and slicks where the steel head lay, he managed to reach all fishable water. The river, being low for the season, responded beautifully to his delicate presenta tion. For the record, he was using a 9-foot, 5-ounce fly rod, and a silk double-taper HDH fly line. His line was carefully matched to the type of fishing he habitually does on his Eastern trout streams. The front taper, which is all-important, consisted of about a foot of level-H size, then a taper of nine feet to a full D size. There is a very practical consideration in this, directly tied in with the average length of those middle-distance casts. If a fly isn't turning over properly on the cast, the front taper of the fly line should come under suspicion. A poorly matched leader could be at fault, too. But it is more likely an improper taper which is causing the trouble. At fifty or sixty feet or farther casting distance, a long taper is best. But if you are using your fly rod for shorter casts on smaller streams, a long taper will not turn over your fly properly, nor will it straighten your leader as it should. Suppose you are using a nine-foot leader, and the taper of your fly line is nine feet. That adds up to eighteen feet of line and leader which is not contributing any great amount of the required weight to bring out the action of the rod, which in turn determines the velocity of the line on the forward cast and its proper turnover. Increase this casting distance to twenty-five feet and there is still very little heavy line beyond the rod tip. Your rod is so woefully underloaded that it is impossible to get either accuracy or delicacy. The remedy is to shorten the taper. Start by cutting off a foot, then test your casting at average stream distances. As you shorten the taper, you bring more heavy line beyond the rod tip for the shorter casts. You load your rod. By the time a taper of from seven to nine feet is reached, other things being equal, you are in balance for any distance from twenty-five to around forty-five feet. Delicacy and accuracy are remarkably improved. For distance work, torpedo head lines are indicated. The dimen sions of these fly lines are about as follows: H or G, 2 to 4 feet; then a taper of from 12 to 18 feet to C, B, or A. Usually there is from 20 to 25 feet of this heavier gauge belly line, then a short taper to an F running line. Forward tapers on these torpedo head lines are often trimmed shorter than this, to bring them in balance for casts around fifty to sixty feet on steelhead streams. Rod balance is brought about by proper fly line selection. In this connection, it is interesting to compare the double taper and tor pedo head lines. A rod which would be nicely loaded with about thirty-five feet of double taper HDH fly line, requires an HCF torpedo head line to balance it. I have one such rod, a 9-foot, 5-ounce rod of medium action which takes such a double taper, with a 9-foot taper. When using a torpedo head line, it is brought in balance as follows: 1 foot of H, 9 feet of taper to size C, 20 feet of C, then a sharp taper to an F running line. I use a heavier outfit for bass and wide steelhead rivers a double taper GBG and a GAP torpedo head line. This last has 12 feet of taper and 26 feet of belly line. It is strictly a distance line, used on a heavy 5.75-ounce, 9-foot rod. A day's fishing with it is very tiring. These torpedo head lines are wonderful when most of the casting is around fifty, sixty, and up to eighty-five feet. But there has been a lot of loose talk about stream casts of from a hundred to a hundred and forty feet. With all my knocking about the rivers, fishing for everything from panfish to salmon, I have yet to see the fly fisherman who can get those distances. Steelhead rivers of the West have more distance-pushing fly fishermen than any other portion of the country. But ninety-five per cent of the casts, even on these broad waters, fall within seventy five feet. Getting a hundred and twenty-five feet on a casting plat form is one thing; getting seventy-five feet distance with your fly when the water is lapping at the top of your boots is something else again. In addition to the various tapers, fly lines can further be divided into three types: those which require dressing to make them float; those designed to float without dressing, and those designed to sink readily. Typical sinking fly lines are made slightly smaller in diameter, for the same weight, than ordinary fly lines. Thus a sinking line having the weight of a GBF torpedo head line will have a calibra tion of about HCF. That must be remembered in fitting a sinking fly line to a rod. On big pools, where trout, steelhead, or salmon are lying deep, a sinking fly line can often be used to get a fly down on the gravel when all other methods fail. It is more difficult to pick up a sinking fly line for the cast. The best method, when it is possible, is to work out the cast, allowing the line to drift into that section of the pool where the current tends to surface. Here, with the water forcing the line upward, it can be picked off the surface much more easily and with far less strain on the fly rod. The floating fly line is much more useful to the average angler than the sinker. A floater will stay on the surface all day without dressing of any kind. Here you have just the opposite of a sinking fly line. It is one size larger in calibration than the ordinary fly line of equivalent weight. This will reduce the distance of longer casts by a few feet, but it has other angling virtues which make up for it. There is definitely a place for this floating fly line in short up stream dry fly angling. Anglers are constantly canvassing ways and means of floating a line for a full day's fishing, but to my knowledge there isn't a conventional fly line dressing available which will keep an ordinary fly line on the surface for a half day's fishing. And once a fly line is saturated with water there is little an angler can do about it, for the line cannot be dressed properly until it is thoroughly dried. My solution, before these floating fly lines came on the market, was to carry two or three extra lines, replacing the water-logged ones at intervals during a day on the stream. The floating fly line should solve that problem, once and for all. Dry fly fishing isn't all the story when an angler is considering the merits of these floating fly lines. There are many advantages in floating a fly line while using nymphs or conventional wet flies. A sinking fly line, a conventional fly line, and a floating fly line complement each other over the season, and an angler can use all three types in his fishing. Little has been said about the quality of material in the average American or English fly lines. In the better grades, they are all of excellent quality. Until a few years ago, silk was the superior fly line material. All the better grades were made from it. But recently, some very good nylon lines have come on the market. The best of these are almost as good as the best silk fly lines. They run almost one size larger than silk lines of equivalent weight, and some anglers find that an objection. American lines, as a rule, will be found more uniform in calibra tion than English lines. But in fitting a rod, there is enough differ ence in weight in designated sizes to require close attention, lest you overload or underload it. This is something which is easily done if you rely entirely on size designations, even in American lines. English fly lines usually have the best finish, and when carefully fitted to an individual rod will outlast American lines. That problem of fitting is complicated by the fact of less standardization. And that makes them less attractive. A good rule is to buy fly lines of a bit higher grade than you can afford; you will never be sorry for that.
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