streamer fishing

[salembassin]

I am looking to use a sink tip line for fishing streamers for trout in rivers and was wondering what length of leader I should be using. I've heard that too long of a leader wont allow your fly to get down deep.

[finnedwonder]

Originally Posted by salembassin

I am looking to use a sink tip line for fishing streamers for trout in rivers and was wondering what length of leader I should be using. I've heard that too long of a leader wont allow your fly to get down deep.

You are right in wanting a sink tip or full sink line for streamers it def makes a difference given the right conditions! Leader length is something of personal preference and skill level when it comes to streamers. I use a specific leader assembly for streamers that some find unnecessary but I like it. The important aspects to remember here are that longer leaders carrying a heavy fly like a streamer require more energy to "turnover" in the cast. Energy that most full sink and even sink tip lines are not designed to generate. Thus a higher risk of low flying head kamikaze casts! However, longer leaders have a lower diameter than the line and will allow for a more true rate of sink If i had a paint program I could illustrate this much better but in essence short leader means the line typically sinks faster than the fly (unless the fly is very heavy) a longer leader will change this balloon effect and allow the line to sink at a truer rate. A longer leader can allow you to fish more than one streamer to which i practice nearly 100% of the time. As a general rule, in my opinion, when starting out streamer fishing using sinking tip or full sink line don't use longer than a 6ft level leader (no taper) I would recommend using maxima or rio flourocarbon in the appropriate weight class for your fishing (trout for me = 8-15lb test at the tip). Hope this helps!

[Moe]

I'm not quite so sophisticated. In faster water I will use a 7 1/2 ft 4X or 5X leader for trout and an 0X for steelhead or salmon. For the majority of my streamer fishing I like a standard 9 ft leader in the same weights.

Sink tip, wet belly and full sink lines are all too often overlooked by fly fishers. Maybe it's because they've done too much reading and have been told that a dry line is the most versatile. For me being versatile means carrying spare spools with sink tip and full sinking lines. For 15 years I fly fished SE Alaska streams for cutthroat and dollies and found the sink tip line to be indispensable. I'd rather use a full sink line instead of a wet belly but they make them for a reason.

One weekend my wife and I went over to fish the Deschutes. I saw a hole I wanted to fish but every time we went by it there were several people fishing it. We had Monday off and late Sunday afternoon we found the spot totally free of people. My wife asked me why I thought I might catch fish there since it was fished so heavily. I said it was because all I saw people using were floating lines and even with a weighted fly or split shot they weren't getting down to the fish. I put the full sink line on and tied on a size 16 nymph and cast way upstream rolling slack into the line to let it sink. On the sweep I hooked a nice, strong Redside. My wife was amazed but even more amazed when I duplicated the feat on the next four casts.

Sink tips are harder to cast but certainly a good tool for catching fish. I've met "purists" that think I'm a heathen for not using dries all of the time but I really like to catch fish and I like using all of the fly fishing tools at my disposal to do so.

[Jaydub]

With sink a sink tip line I generally use a leader no longer than about 4 ft. The deepest point of the system is usually at the end of the sink tip. If you get too far away from that your fly will be running shallower. The exception might be heavily weighted flies.

[FLGator]

I follow Kelly Galloup's recommendation of a leader with a total length of about 4'. In his book he recommends a butt section of 20# Maxima Chameleon 18" long followed by a tippet section of 10-12# Maxima Ultragreen 24" long. His co author recommends a leader of 24" of 20#, 10" of 15# and 14-16" 10#.

[salembassin]

Thanks a lot for the responses guys! That is exactly the info I was looking for.

[gustav]

I fished for Browns in Montana last Summer and we used a Airflo 5 ft quick sink poly leader. The mono was around 3-4 ft; and we used floating lines. This cast real nice and we caught quite a few fish.