A sinking fly line is used to fish nymphs and streamers. Jenny Mayrell-Woodruff, Woodruff, Flyfish Beaver’s Bend (Broken Bow, Oklahoma): I use a floating line with split shot more often because I am constantly changing locations on the river. If you find yourself in shallow water, a floating line with no split shot will work well if the fish are hitting your streamer or wet fly. Personally, my boat roads are Orvis Recons because they are great casting, user friendly, and incredibly durable, holding up to long rides in the rod holders and hundreds of days on the water. Again, a sink-tip line can alleviate some of this headache since most of the line floats allowing for improved line management. RIO InTouch Big Nasty Sink Tip Fly Line 15 Foot ‘Type’ Tips. If you're fishing structure that's 5-10 feet deep, an intermediate fly line may be the best line for the job. With an integrated sinking tip or full-sinking line, you need to continue to strip the line all the way in before you can recast. And it’s full of great insights and info. Line: 8 weight- Sinking Tip- 20-30 ft tip with Type 6" sink rate with Intermediate running line If fish are feeding on top use the same line but start your retrieve as soon as the fly lands on the water to keep the fly near the top of the water column, or switch to an Intermediate sinking tip line. That’s not lunchtime. I’ll look forward to many more. These types of fly lines are useful when fishing streamers in rivers or also when fishing lakes with the same patterns. Thanks. In both instances, the weight will give the fly a jigging action, which the trout find very attractive. Since 1856. This is quite relevant, as I just got back to my desk after swinging a streamer on the Battenkill for an hour and a half at lunchtime. The styles of sink tips vary greatly and consequently can leave some people scratching their head when trying to decide which fly line to put on their streamer rod. When To Use a Sinking Polyleader vs. a Sink-Tip We will concentrate on depths between 12 and 36 inches, working the fly fast, then medium speed, and finally with a slow retrieval rate. Low water is the only time I fish this particular set-up; for most of the season, I prefer a sinking PolyLeader and a three-foot section of level 2X or 3X. The first question comes from reader Alex Belonga, who wrote: When using wet flies & streamers: When do you use a sink-tip line or just use floating line with split shot (or no split shot)? This RIO Fly Fishing Tip shows how to quickly turn a floating line into a sink tip by attaching a VersiLeader. Very well presented info. Thanks! As you’ll see from our experts’ answers below, there are many different ways to look at the question, and opinions vary. Patrick Fulkrod, The South Holston River Company (Bristol, Virginia): I love swinging soft hackles. Essential Equipment to Get Started Fly Fishing – Fly Fishing Basics, Fly Fishing Leader and Tippet: What, Why and How, Video Tip: Two Fly Fishing Knots To Know To Get Started, 10 Things I Wish I Knew When Learning to Fly Fish, The Three Main Types of Flies to Fly Fish for Trout - Fly Fishing Basics, Taking Up Fly Fishing – 5 Basic Tips for Fly Fishing Beginners, Disclosure for The Fly Fishing Basics.com. This type of fishing is ideal for a switch or 2 handed rod but can still be done on a single hander. Weightless flies that are easier to cast and sometimes have better “action” can be used and so can shorter leaders. In this case, the sinktip helps keep the upwelling of the moving current from bringing the fly to the surface. I use various sinking rate lines, I never use a sink tip, always full sinking lines. When I am fishing soft hackles and other traditional wet flies, I always prefer a floating line. Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. This is when sinking-tip lines are at their best. Experimentation is the only way to figure out the best presentation. And with the fly line submerged, the fly will stay down and retrieve more in a straight line rather than upward toward the surface. I fish the exact match to your river, only mine is up in Canada. Scientific Anglers Sonar Stillwater Parabolic Sink line, for instance, has a sink 3 running line, a sink 5 head, and a sink 3 tip. Our boat rods are rigged as follows: We usually have four rods rigged and ready—2 rods rigged with floating line and 2 rods rigged with a sinking-tip line. I swung the fly just under the surface with good success: three fish on, two to hand, and several short-strikes and swirls. Sinking tips come into play for me when the water is too deep to effectively get to fish level, but even then, a change of angle with a floating line and proper mending should get me where I want to be most often. I enjoy tying and fishing streamers but have not found a good way to carry the bigger ones. They cast much easier than full-sinking lines and thus, they are more forgiving to novice anglers. Along these same lines, other mass-related benefits — anchoring your line, loading your rod, turning over flies — are also more pronounced with sink tips. Sink tips are not required by most fly lines, but it is preferred to use a tip most of the time in many fly fishing applications including trout, salmon, seatrout and pike fishing to get your fly into position i.e.placement, depth of the fly and your presentation. There are times of high water with extra swift currents when I’ll add some sink putty to the leader instead of shot. Here are a few recommendations. To sum it up it’s all about depth and current speed. I just add or subtract split shot to help get my flies down fast in smaller pockets of fishy water, like the soft water behind a large boulder. Sink tips are the marriage of traditional floating line and sinking line. If I’m after a darting or fleeing action I’ll lean toward a heavy fly, such as a tungsten head wooley bugger or variant, on a floating line and mend/twitch to keep the fly moving in erratic motions. Thank you so much to all of you who took the time to answer, and especially ‘Ask the Experts’ for setting this up. We all use Orvis lines, ranging from Hydros to Access and everything in between. When using my 4 weight and I want to get down, I just put on a poly-leader and weighted fly, which sinks enough to usually get by. The original fifteen foot tips come with a color coded welded loop that indicate the tips’ density (or in this case, sink rate) and the weight of the rod/line weight it should be used on. 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