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Floating, Intermediate & Density Compensated Coldwater Fly Line Review (Sci Ang, Rio, Airflo, Orvis, Cortland

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CaryGreene

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3. Don't write something on a box that isn't true. If you call a line an 8wt, it should fall Within the +/-range that has been pre-established for the green weight of the first 30 feet of castable fly line.

Cary,

 

The trouble is that some lines simply will not honour the established AFTM standards and still function correctly. The design of them makes the standard obsolete.

 

The obvious example is the Rio Outbound Short, which is an integrated shooting head line. One of these that was built to be cast with an 8wt rod should be sold with the label "8wt line" so that a buyer knows that line suits his 8wt rod. If Rio honoured the AFTM standard, they would need to label it as a 10wt line.

 

For the Rio OBS 8wt line, labelling it as a 10wt line would be completely wrong because it won't adequately load a 10wt rod.

 

Cheers,

Graeme

FFi Certified Casting Instructor

 

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Before the arrival of factory integrated shooting head lines such as Rio OB short we had to make our own S/H and the common practice is to start by attaching a 30' shooting head approx. two line weights over the AFTMA line rating to a thin running line of choice and then if need be, trim the 30' head back by cutting off increments of one foot until the rod performs as expected. Hence the integrated short heads on factory lines generally speaking weigh two lines over. As Graeme stated these lines should be rated by the rod required to balance and cast them, not by the weight of their head however in my opinion they should state on the box that they are "INTEGRATED SHOOTING HEADS" to avoid confusion.

They certainly have their use but stealth, finesse or sight casting to spooky fish is certainly not their forte. 

Edited by sidelock
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Cary,

 

The trouble is that some lines simply will not honour the established AFTM standards and still function correctly. The design of them makes the standard obsolete.

 

The obvious example is the Rio Outbound Short, which is an integrated shooting head line. One of these that was built to be cast with an 8wt rod should be sold with the label "8wt line" so that a buyer knows that line suits his 8wt rod. If Rio honoured the AFTM standard, they would need to label it as a 10wt line.

 

For the Rio OBS 8wt line, labelling it as a 10wt line would be completely wrong because it won't adequately load a 10wt rod.

 

Cheers,

Graeme

 

 

Graeme, 

 

You are missing my point though. We as buyers deserve to simply have the facts given to us & your example presents the exact opportunity that would be an easy fix for a line manufacturer to address. On the bottom right hand corner you simply write - 

 

330 Grains

recommended for 8wt. rod - Grain Weight should overload for desired shooting head effect on most rods 

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Before the arrival of factory integrated shooting head lines such as Rio OB short we had to make our own S/H and the common practice is to start by attaching a 30' shooting head approx. two line weights over the AFTMA line rating to a thin running line of choice and then if need be, trim the 30' head back by cutting off increments of one foot until the rod performs as expected. Hence the integrated short heads on factory lines generally speaking weigh two lines over. As Graeme stated these lines should be rated by the rod required to balance and cast them, not by the weight of their head however in my opinion they should state on the box that they are "INTEGRATED SHOOTING HEADS" to avoid confusion.

They certainly have their use but stealth, finesse or sight casting to spooky fish is certainly not their forte. 

 

Yes, see the solution above. Also, before shooting heads we actually did this with DT lines, simply cutting one back until we had the desired grain weight. When I say "before" I mean before they were commonly available to order or purchase. 

 

When I say "we" I am referring to myself and some older guys in Roscoe, NY back in the late 60's and early 70's. If you wanted to buy a lead core line for saltwater use, you had to ask Walt to have Myron (Gregory) send you one of his lines from out on the West Coast. We fished a lot of ponds with streamers back then and used these lines for that application plus when we vacationed at Montauk.

 

I'm not exactly sure when Myron first made his lead core lines, which were used for Pacific Salmon and also Rock Bass. At some point this western influence also produced ways to deal with flood stage rivers, which were the early "slinkey" lines which several lead core lines woven into a cable. They allowed you to dredge deep but you had to water load them as you really couldn't cast them. Once loaded, please duck. I am not sure how far these freeking things went but they WENT. hahahah. Wow!

 

Walt said that back in the 50's there were some guys from the Golden Gate Anglers club who vacationed in Roscoe and they showed him some silk and lead core trolling lines that were fashioned into hodge-podge shooting lines that were connected to monofilament. These were the first shooting lines Walt was aware of so most likely, Shooting Heads were invented as far back as the 30's and nobody actually fished with them. They were more of a tournament thing in elite competition casting. I got a chance to talk this over with Steve (Rajeff) when he came to the store for casting demos every now and then. There is a lot of history with all this stuff. 

 

We got to play with the Frankenstein lines, as we called them and we were making 120 foot casts out in the street all summer long, using Walt's 9/10 wt. rod. George Harvey could throw it about 140 feet plus\ when he came to visit and I'm pretty sure if we had a beefier rod he could have thrown it a lot further. I used to mark the road with my chalk and Walt's tape measure and I'd ride by early in the morning after a rain storm (delivering the paper) and I would get all worked up because the rain would wash away our marks. I finally got the bright idea to put out some bricks that I painted white. 

 

We also had a calling for floating shooting heads, which were just as hard to come by, for actual real fishing situations and based on what we learned, we just used the scale at the hardware store and weighed out a few DT lines that we saved up for & cut them off & attached them to mono filament. Those suckers opened up all sorts of fun stuff. We could launch deer hair bugs on ponds (from the canoe) and also fish streamers at dusk and into the night. We whipped loops in the back end of the DT line and used a bimini twist loop in the mono. 

 

To this day I can tie a double bimini twist with my eyes closed or blindfolded! In fact, there isn't a fishing knot I can't tie blindfolded. Strange super human skill of mine! haha! (Lots of night fishing I guess)

Edited by CaryGreene
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When you think about the biggest innovations in Fly Fishing, you have to include the shooting head as a real big one. In fact, Shooting Heads, Coated Fly Lines, Graphite Rods, Nylon Leaders and Neoprene or Goretex have to be right on up there at the top of the list in terms of significant changes to the sport.

 

I wouldn't really put "Integrated" Heads in the huge innovations cagegory, I mean it's just taking some intermediate line and welding it to some tungsten impregnated line, which would be more or less fine tuning something that was significant about 60 years prior to this idear! Which would you rather have, an integrated head line and a gut leader or a lead core shooting head and a nylon leader. Not a hard call. 

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Hi Cary,

 

I didn't miss your point and I completely agree that the makers should be giving us more information.

 

My point is that the AFTM standard doesn't apply to so many lines now (OBS is just one extreme example) and trying to release each line with an AFTM label in addition to your other fine suggestions will make things more confusing, not less. Leave out Point 3 in your list above and we don't lose anything relevant in modern lines. Definitely put the grain weight in for the first 10 metres and the grain weight for the entire casting weight, but label the line as per the makers' intended use for the line. 

 

If it's a line intended for an 8wt rod, that is the most important label on the packet.

 

Cheers,

Graeme

FFi Certified Casting Instructor

 

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Hi Graeme,

 

I'm just not understanding what you are saying. Could you give me an example of what, lets say, a current "8wt" Outbound Short (330 grains) and another example of a line that has, say a 33' foot integrated head that is also 330 grains at the 30' mark & has a  total weight of lets say 400 grains - What should each line say on the box?

 

You usually have a very good idea so forgive my not getting your drift!

Edited by CaryGreene
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I remember way back when there was no such thing as a commercially made shooting head or a 26 foot sink tip. My friends and I used to go up to Grande Lake Stream and the latest thing to make the scene on the fly fishing horizon was a flat rather than round red colored mono called "Amnesia"  and it was attached to a piece of lead core line that had to be cut shorter in small increments until the right length was reached and then the leader was added.

 

It really worked well, it landed in one big heap but then after the chuck and duck cast it would just straighten out and tumble along the bottom of the stream. More than one Landlocked Salmon was taken with it. I remember he first time I used it for Fresh water was at Hamblins Pond fishing a very deep hole right next to the shore. That line pulled up some very nice fish. It was also a great line t use in a belly boat.

 

I have to think that has to be well over 40 years ago.

The Tug Is The Drug

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I started to go back and read through some of this stuff and my head started to hurt and that is not a knock on anyone, I wish I could discipline myself to commit to rearming all of this but it just isn't in my genes, so for me  I try simply to stick with what has always worked well up to this point.

 

I do understand that all lines have a grain weight and I honestly cannot remember ever seeing any floating fly line that is not sold with only a grain weigh designation, I believe they are all sold as 5 wt, 6 wt  or  7 wt and so on. I believe Intermediate lines are also sold this way. If I ever come across a floating or Intermediate fly line being sold with only a grain weight designation those are what I will not be buying when so many others tell me what I need to know.

 

Now we get into sink tips and how they are sold in grain weights with various head lengths, mostly in the 24 to 30 foot range.

 

I prefer the 26 foot head but that is just a preference but not an absolute.  My rule of thumb for when I want to buy this type of line is for my 10 weight I buy a 350 grain, my 9 wt I buy a 300  grain and my 8 wt I buy a 250 grain. That has always worked well for me and it is the KISS method that has served me very well.  I am also fairly sure that I could go up or down a little either way on the grain weight for each rod and still  get off a decent cast if I had to.

The Tug Is The Drug

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Hi Cary,

 

I'll try to put it simply but sometimes I don't manage to do that. Sorry ....

 

(To answer your specific question, that is a 10wt line for my rods, although putting 70gn into the 3'butt section of the head is a little over the top ... :cool:  I would be casting the complete head on that line, not the first 30' and trying to shoot 3' of head plus the running line.)

 

More generally, any given rod works best within a certain range of total mass being cast. To keep it simple, lets say it's an 8wt rod and a good load for it to cast is about 330gn. It will happily cast less and it will cast more but it will feel sloppy doing so. (Our old mate Max Garth called this the "grain weight envelope" of the rod.)

 

Rio makes their OBS with that weight and the head is 30' long. The first 30' weighs 330gn and that's pretty much it for the line. Feeding out another 3' adds next to nothing to the mass being cast. That line is "matched" to that rod when 30' of line is outside the tip.

 

Rio makes the Outbound with a 37.5' head length. That line also has a total head mass of 330gn. As with the OBS, the caster needs to carry the full length of the head to "match" the line to the rod, so 37.5' is carried. Same total mass being cast, just more line outside the tip. Here, Rio have spread the total mass being cast over 37.5', so the first 30' will weigh something less than the first 30' of the OBS (which is the whole head). Unfortunately, and this goes back to your point: I cannot find the a weight for the first 30' of the Outbound.  :banghd:

 

The Rio Gold WF8F has a head length of 50'. The total mass of that 50' is 310gn, so just a tad lighter than what the rod prefers, but not too bad. The first 30' weighs 210gn, which is not a full load for the rod, but it still casts just fine. If the caster wants to fully load the rod to its optimum potential, he/she will need to carry all 50' of the head.

 

The Mastery Expert Distance WF8F has a head length of 74.5', and like the Gold, the first 30' is also 210gn. I am not able to find the total mass of the head ( :banghd: ) but I would say it's going to be just over 330gn. To load the rod optimally with this line, the caster may need to hold some of the head back to achieve 330gn. Of course, he/she is welcome to carry the whole head, but doing so will probably make the rod fell a little sloppy.

 

To summarise:

  • OBS = 330gn total at 30',
  • OB = 330gn total at 37.5',
  • Gold = 310gn total at 50' 
  • MED =~330gn(?) total at 74.5'.

All have similar total casting masses but very different profiles to achieve those masses.

 

All four of these lines are 8wt lines and all four are well matched to the rod, though maybe not the caster. They were all designed for an 8wt rod that has an optimum casting mass of 330gn, but all of them have very different line profiles. Only the Gold and MED honour the AFTM standard.

 

Rio and SA are correct in putting the label of "8wt Line" on the boxes. They are all 8wt lines designed to be used on 8wt rods. They all have different applications and are all suited to casters of differing abilities. Like you though, I wish the makers would give users the capacity to assess lines and match them to their own rods, applications and casting abilities.

 

Cheers,

Graeme

Edited by kalgrm

FFi Certified Casting Instructor

 

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I started to go back and read through some of this stuff and my head started to hurt and that is not a knock on anyone, I wish I could discipline myself to commit to rearming all of this but it just isn't in my genes, so for me  I try simply to stick with what has always worked well up to this point.....

 

If I ever come across a floating or Intermediate fly line being sold with only a grain weight designation those are what I will not be buying when so many others tell me what I need to know.

 

...

 

My rule of thumb for when I want to buy this type of line is for my 10 weight I buy a 350 grain, my 9 wt I buy a 300  grain and my 8 wt I buy a 250 grain. That has always worked well for me and it is the KISS method that has served me very well.  I am also fairly sure that I could go up or down a little either way on the grain weight for each rod and still  get off a decent cast if I had to.

Sorry BFD - I guess my previous post has only muddied the waters for you further, eh?  :howdy:

 

Surely though, if you walked into a shop and found a floating line that was an integrated shooting head type (as the sinking lines you've been buying are) and it was only marked with grain weights, you of all people would be just fine. You already know that a 350gn head suits your 10wt rod for your style of casting. You would just buy that one knowing that it's perfect. You'd buy the WF300gnF for your 9wt and the WF250gnF for your 8wt.

 

Talk about KISS! You've made it more simple than the makers wanted! Every other poor sod who wants a 250gn line for their 8wt rod must trust that the "8wt line" they just bought really is 250gn. But how do they know?

 

Cheers,

Graeme

 

(PS on Edit: Have you tried an 8wt OBS on your 10wt rods? It has a head mass of 330gn and it may be a nice match for your style of casting.)

Edited by kalgrm

FFi Certified Casting Instructor

 

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During the last five years I have tested and fished with a lot of different rods and matched them with a lot of different lines. 90% of the time a rod has worked very well with a line that is matched with its labeled line weight. So for me its always very confusing to read that there's some kind of a problem in the industry :) . Or if there is a problem, it is not in the companys making the fly lines... I think the line company's are making a hell of a good job keeping up with rod manufacturers and making excellent fly lines for different fishing scenarios.

 

The only exception to this rule has been the OBS and Sniper lines. 9 out of 10 rods like a line that's labeled a line weight lower then the rod. A 8weight OBS for a 9weight rod etc... Great lines for their intented purpose, but just too heavy for me to match a 9weight line to a 9weight rod etc..

Edited by jabster
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For instance a Cortland 444 WF8I 30ft is 209gr which is one grain lighter than 8wt tolerance and its whole 32ft head is only 217gr.

 

Cortland Tropic Plus WF9F has only 26.3ft/239gr head but at 30ft it is exactly standard 250gr.

 

My scale had less than 1% tolerance when I did compare it to a good scale and I have few calibration weights which I can check the calibration. Some error comes when I hold the non measured part of line outside a cup where the weeighted line section is.

 

Esa

"Game fish are too valuable to be caught only once" 1939 Lee Wulff
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I don't mind Muddy Waters most of the time and I like jabsler feel the companies make some great products to cover the different fishing scenarios. I guess my assessment from trying to read all of this is that products are sold and produced and what we get besides the specs from the various companies is we also get how they are marketed with a bent as to why you should buy this line for these particular conditions to catch more fish.

 

I don't see the manufacturers going back and forth about what rod works best with what line, it always seems to be a case of a few individuals trying to make their point and I don't think one will ever convince the other of which point is more valid and that is very evident with all the follow up replies.

 

I will be the first to admit all of this is also very good in it's own right because it is entertaining and educational as well.

The Tug Is The Drug

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