Fly Fishing Tech Tips: Making our own heads from scrap fly lines
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 พ.ค. 2023
- Any fly fisher who has been in the sport for any significant amount of time, will have collected any number of fly lines that are now collecting dust.
Here's how to repurpose those fly lines into different types of lines to suit your specific fishing situations. - กีฬา
Just the video I needed. I’m going to try to make a shooting head out if one of my heavier lines. Going back to watch your welding videos. Thanks a bunch!!
Hi Peter, your welding videos gave me the confidence to start making my own lines a little while ago and glad to see that I hit on the same basic principles as what you described. Last year I was considering purchasing the Airflo streamer max short but the $130 price tag was a little high for me at the time since I wasn’t sure if I honestly needed this line for my fishing or not. As a way of testing the principle I decided to sacrifice a Rio 6wt full sink line which I didn’t like to use because it cast poorly, and I had a bunch of SA textured spey tips in different sink rates to use for the butt. I ended up welding 7’ of an intermediate sink tip to 15’ of the Rio full sink line for a fair approximation of the dimensions of the airflo line, and it casts great. I manage to turn over long leaders and decent sized streamers in the sound at good distance. And like you said, it adds an extra level of satisfaction catching fish on a fly you tied, on a line you welded, and a rod you built.
Funny you should mention the Airflo Streamer Max Short. Back in 2009 I had a web page on fishing with shooting heads and one of the articles I posted in it had a line that I had welded up for use on my two handers. It had 15' of T8 welded to 15' of intermediate belly, followed by a floating running line with the colours dark grey/ice blue/orange respectively.
A couple of years or so later Airflo produced the same style of line using exactly the same colour scheme of dark grey/ice blue/orange. The only difference, it was shorter for use on single hand rods. Coincidence?
I wasn't with Airflo at the time so no way to know if this was a copycat case or parallel development.
That was fascinating; it made me to think about the old casting competitions featuring folk like Joan Wulff where fly lines were custom made to create a profile suitable for distance casting. I never knew exactly how they did it but I think it was largely done with silk lines and I knew they'd weigh out different materials and sort of weave them together to construct a workable line. It seems you could do something similar based on what you've demonstrated here. Anyway, another great video.
Interesting that you could do this with fly lines which I did not know. But at the same time, too complicated for me. You really got to know what you're doing I guess. For now I will just buy the line type I need.
Great information
Peter, great videos. I have a few questions:
1. How do you know what length head is ideal for a single hand rod (say 3wt, 6wt, etc)? Could a 5-7’ head work?
2. How do you determine the target grain weight for a given rod?
3. Is it possible to weld a Rio slickshooter running line to a head?
4. Is there an advantage to using a 10’ sink tip over a 5-7’ sink tip on a typical 3’-7’ deep trout creek when using a single hand rod?
Thank you!!
1: The minimum length of head would be roughly a little less than double the rod length. Any shorter and the D-Loop becomes too inefficient and the casts get clunky. So for example, around 15' for a 9' rod.
2: Two line weights over the AFTMA recommendation, so 6 wt. at 160 would use around 210-220 which is an 8 wt. ballpark.
3. Nope, the mono loses all of its strength when it melts.
4: For any given sink rate, a longer tip gets the fly deeper. Shorter tips are easier to cast on a single hander, so it's a toss up.
I have a 10wt spey rod, how affective would a standard 5wt fly line attached to a skagit shooting line. I strip fish and dont like the mono for stripping and i also dont want to by a intergrated line.
The 5 wt. could be made to work, but we're better off with a proper coated running line, if you don't like mono. The problem with the 5 wt. is the low strength core, usually 20lb. sometimes only 15 lb. If we snagged up badly, the 5 wt. could be the first component to break. A true 30 lb. coated running line, like the Airflo Ridge line, would be a much better choice.
@hooked4lifeca thanks, that makes sense, and it is a concern of mine. I would hate to break off and lose my shooting head and sink tip.