Sink Tip Question

[trent]

I didn't really know where to stick this thread since there isn't just a "general" catch all category.

Anyway, I was reading through some of Dustin's posts and the one about fishing the Erie Islands got me thinking.

I didn't start out fishing with a spinning rod or bait casting. I just basically started fly fishing and pretty much strictly on moving water.

So, I don't have that knowledge base about fish behavior in general in standing bodies of water. If I want to get down to the fish in a lake, it sounds like a sink tip is the trick. Can someone describe the tactics you use when fishing a sink tip line?

If you are in a boat, are you casting toward shore? Toward the middle of a lake? How about from the bank?

What is your retreive like?

How much leader are you using? Are you also using weighted flies or not? Why or why not?

Feel free to address any other questions I didn't think to ask as well.

[Tippecanoe Fly Fishers Admin]

Well, I am not going to claim to have as much fly fishing knowledge as Dustin, but I have fished lakes since I have been young. I just started fly fishing them though recently and found that many things hold true from bait/spin casting to fly fishing.

Rule number one and the most important rule – You have to fish where the fish are at. I am still trying to convince my dad on this one, but he is of the mind set that he is going to find the next great fishing hole every time he goes out.

Fishing where the fish are at usually translates into fishing cover. Weed bed, stumps, piers, lily pads, etc. I have found that this is much easier from a boat. Personally on a lake of any size you can cover more ground fishing from a boat then fishing from the bank or wading around the edges. Having a fish finder in your boat also helps in finding where the fish are at. However it doesn’t mean that they will bite.

You don’t always have to use a sinking tip either. You can fish for bass using poppers on the surface. Bluegill and sunfish will also hit top water baits. Krebsi showed me a trick of tying a small fly off the hook of your larger bass popper and the popper gets the attention of the bluegill, but they strike the small sinking fly. While a bass can get your popper, it is also doubling as a strike indicator for you small fly. Generally I was tying the small fly nine inches from my popper.

If you are fishing a new lake I would suggest getting a map of the lake that shows the depths in five foot increments. When you can’t find cover to fish, start looking for structure. Points that extend from the shore out into the lake, humps on the bottom, or steep banks all of these can provide structure for the fish to use as roadmaps t get from one place to the next. Usually from where they hang out to where they feed.

Rule number two – know what you are fishing for.
Getting a hold of a 36” northern on a 3 or even a 5 weight rod will probably only lead to stories of the one that got away. This year, Krebsi let me barrow a nine weight to fish for northern on my yearly trip to Minnesota. When I got hold of a northern I was glad that I had it. This leads me to another point; don’t be afraid to use big flies. I have found that fish aren’t really afraid of hitting big stuff when they are hungry. But to catch them, they have to be at least able to get the hook in there mouths. Sometimes flies are good for several species of fish. I used a fly that Krebsi uses for snook in Florida to catch Northern Pike in Minnesota. While a bass could have also hit that fly, I have seldom seen a Northern of any size hit anything on the surface. I am not going to say they won’t. I am just saying that I have not seen it happen.

I hope this helps you out. Let me know if you have any more questions.

[reelteacher]

Les,
Those are some very good tips. Thank you for sharing.

There are a few places where a sink tip or even a full sinking line come in very handy, but like Les said, you don't absolutely have to have one.

I bought my first full sinking line about 3 years ago. Now, I have been fly fishing since I was a boy, so that's about 25 years of fly fishing before I really was interested in a sinking line. Sinking tips and full sinking lines have advantages and disadvantages as with anything in life. From my own experiences, here is what I have learned:
Advantages.
1. You can use unweighted flies and acheive deeper depths than weighted flies on floating line.
2. You can use a very short leader, 5 or 6 ft. and cast huge flies much greater distances than on floating lines with longer leaders. The fly line's weight add much more inertia and will cause the rod to load or bend much deeper which will generate enormous line speeds and improve distance and accuracy.
3. Full sinking lines are thinner in diameter and cut through the wind much better than wider floating lines.
4. Full sinking lines keep your flies in the strike zone much longer and on a more level plane than floating line with a weighted fly. The fly will swim in a flatter trajectory and won't bounce up and down quite so much. This is important if the fish are deeper than 5 feet. The fly can stay at much deeper depths for greater distances. This was a key to success on Lake Erie when we were fishing in 8-15 ft of water most of the time. I could use unweighted flies and swim them right along the bottom where most of the fish were.

Disadvantages:
1. The sinking fly line sinks and tangles around your feet, rocks, weeds, everything! I highly recommend a stripping basket when fishing sinking fly line. Otherwise this is a big pain and the cause of much frustration and gnashing of teeth...
2. Once you make your cast, you are now committed to stripping the whole line all the way back in again. Unlike floating line, where you can instantly pick up a bad cast and place the fly right where you want it, once the sinking line is below the surface, you have to strip it ALL back in to get it out of the water in order to re-cast.
3. You have to be a good counter. The fly line sinks at a specific rate, anywhere from 1-2 inches per second to 9-10 inches per second, depending upon the grain weight. The more grains, the faster the line will sink. If you are trying to get to a specific depth, say 10 ft, then you have to count the fly line down as the line sinks. Well, I think I have ADD or ADHD when I fish, because I can never remember to count, or if I do remember, usually I get distracted and forget what number I'm on, or I just give up completely after a while. This counting thing is harder than people say... for me at least. It sounds good in theory, but very hard in real life.
4. Strikes can be tricky to detect when using a sink tip or full sinking line. First, you cannot see your fly, nor your leader, nor the end of your fly line. Plus, the weight of your fly line is pulling on the tip top of your flyrod, so subtle strikes are all but indedectable. I know there are several fish I missed on Lake Erie because of this phenomenon. It's just really hard to know if a fish has picked up your fly. Sure, the massive strikes are easy and a sure thing, but the fish that just sucks in the fly will probably spit it out without you even realizing anything happened. Practice is the only thing that will help you overcome this handicap. At the end of a full week fishing the full sinking line, I was better than at the beginning of the week, but not much better. I know there were still lots of strikes I was missing. Case in point, we had been fishing a drop off around a rock pile for about 15 minutes or so without so much as a nibble, or so I thought. Then, I decided to use the same retrieve, only this time, as the fly neared the rocks, I let the fly sink just as before, but instead of continuing my same retrieve, I gave a hard line strip, and BINGO, I had a large sheephead. I never even felt that fish, I just stipped hard, and there he was. Coincidence, I think not. Those fish were eating my fly and spitting it out faster than I could feel them. I just got lucky and nailed one mid-suck.
5. It takes time to switch back to a floating line if you want to switch to a floating fly. Or you could elliminate this problem with another rod loaded with floating line. OH, you are starting to see the need for multiple fly rods, multiple reels, multiple lines... Umm, did anyone tell you this sport gets expensive rather quickly once you start expanding your horizons. This is why I didn't get into sinking lines until my wife had an income.

So, weigh the pros and cons, and then you have to make a decision. Is it worth it? You need a new reel or at least an additional spool for the sinking line. Then, you'll probably want that new rod to throw this new line with the new reel....... Second Career...... Lottery tickets.....GODD LUCK!

[trent]

Dustin:

very good info. Have you done any walleye/northern fishing with a sink tip? It sounds like Les has done some.

Also, I wanted to ask you a follow up question. You mentioned that you need to strip in all of a sinking line, but that would not hold true for just a sink tip, or would it? I think I read somewhere that you can roll cast to bring a sink tip up to the surface and then recast. Is that correct?

[reelteacher]

Trent,
I tried to fish for walleye in Lake Erie, but the sheephead and smallmouth bass got in the way. I didn't actually ever catch a walleye from Lake Erie, just about everything else though. I have caught walleye from the Tippecanoe river. I was just using a clouser minnow and floating line there though. There are so many rocks, I have never used a full sinking line on the Tippy. I suppose I could, but I would need a stripping basket.
I have used a full sinking line for Stripers in the Roanoke River in North Carolina and there it worked great. You needed a line that would sink fast and get down to the fish in a hurry. There was a very powerful current that wouldn't allow the heaviest fly to sink fast enough on a floating line.
You are absolutely correct. With a sink tip, you can do a nice roll cast and get most of the tip out of the water and then pick up the rest of the line on an immediate follow up backcast.
Sink tips have some distinct advantages and disadvantages of their own. I do own a sink tip fly line, but I have not used it very much at all, in fact, I don't think I've caught a fish using a sink tip line. I either go full sink or full float. I purchased a clear sinking intermediate line last year that sinks very slowly about 1-2 inches per sec. I love that line, especially in the spring time when I just wanted that little bit extra sinking, to get the fly down in the deep holes. The one thing I really liked about it is that I can use it in small creeks like Sugar and Eagle Creek and my fly didn't sink too fast for me to fish it. I had very good control over how deep I could fish by using a slower or faster retrieve. Plus, the clear line made me more confident that the fish were not getting spooked by my fly line, which always leads to more success on the water.