Your favorite sinking fly line?

[The Quadfather]

Need a new full sinking fly line. Obviously my fly shop will have something in mind, but wondering if anyone here has full sinking line that they are really happy with. I am looking for one that will go as deep as possible when slow trolling behind a float tube on deep lakes.

Edit: Actually, may even consider running leaded line on a large arbor fly reel? Now that's an idea.

Ian.. Bodofish..?

Thanks

[Bodofish]

for sinking, I'm currently using a 6-7ips I got from Maxcatch on ebay. It was like 5 bucks. I also have an intermediate that seems to work just fine. Now to be truthful, with the full sink, I normally just troll it around, it sinks a bit fast for casting at the shore. it does cast just fine, in fact you can really load a rod with it.

PS or were you looking for sink tip fly line?

[The Quadfather]

for sinking, I'm currently using a 6-7ips I got from Maxcatch on ebay. It was like 5 bucks. I also have an intermediate that seems to work just fine. Now to be truthful, with the full sink, I normally just troll it around, it sinks a bit fast for casting at the shore. it does cast just fine, in fact you can really load a rod with it.

PS or were you looking for sink tip fly line?

Looking for very much full sinking line. Most what I've seen is 6-7 ips, and maybe that is just fine. Just curious what people liked.
I am up at Lost lake (Kittitas) and I actually float tube the whole lake, and wanted to really get down deep. I have had at least one year that I did exremely well here with Gringo Pescidor, and other yesrs when i got blanked.
Some recent good reports suggested deeper depths.

[Bodofish]

for sinking, I'm currently using a 6-7ips I got from Maxcatch on ebay. It was like 5 bucks. I also have an intermediate that seems to work just fine. Now to be truthful, with the full sink, I normally just troll it around, it sinks a bit fast for casting at the shore. it does cast just fine, in fact you can really load a rod with it.

PS or were you looking for sink tip fly line?

Looking for very much full sinking line. Most what I've seen is 6-7 ips, and maybe that is just fine. Just curious what people liked.
I am up at Lost lake (Kittitas) and I actually float tube the whole lake, and wanted to really get down deep. I have had at least one year that I did exremely well here with Gringo Pescidor, and other yesrs when i got blanked.
Some recent good reports suggested deeper depths.

That's good to know, I've been trying to get my @$$ up there for a couple years now. It would be tight getting the big boat in but I'm sure the drifter would fit fine. As I understand it the lake has been planted with trips so there could be some really big fish. Just have a look on EBay if you aren't in a big hurry. I can't see any reason to spend more than about $10 for a sinking line. The one I have works every bit as good as the $50 $60 lines.

[Ian Horning]

Sorry I got to this a little late. I have a RIO connect core full sink and it works gloriously. Some people have had issues with the connect core but it works great for me. Loads a rod super easy and welded loops make changing leaders a breeze.

[zen leecher aka Bill W]

It depends in where you fish. I have a regular sinker that's good in shallow-ish lakes (normal depths) and I have a real fast sink that gets down fairly fast. The real fast sink would be dragging in the weeds in a normal depth lake and the regular sinker would take a long time in a deep lake. I'd figure out which type of water you fish and buy accordingly. Running water depth requires a denser line than the same depth water in lakes.

Lost Lake (you mentioned) might benefit from the faster sink rates. Uniform sink rated line is better so that the fly is somewhat at the level (or close to it) that the belly of your line.

Or.... you could think outside the box and either add a piece of leadcore to the front of your regular sinker or just tie on a section of leadcore to your backing and use that for the "fly line". I've used a short "tip" addition to a regular floating line when I was fishing in Yellowstone Park (rivers) and it drug me down too deep so I was dragging on the bottom. The "tips" I used were one and two foot "tips" with loops to add to the front of a line. It does cause some hinging though.

[Bodofish]

The whole point of a sinking (full) line is that you maintain a pretty much straight line to your presentation. Minimal curve or drop at the end. Sink tips, are river fair where you want your main line floating and not getting hooked up on rocks. That said, full sink lines, like tips come in different densities the lighter ones and measured in IPS, inches per second. One of my full sink lines for the lake is a 6-7IPS. That's about the fastest for a full line. Good for trolling and casting into the deep. After you cast it out, count it down to depth. I also use an intermediate line, that's neutrally buoyant. No float or sink and you still keep a straight line to the presentation. Using a sink tip makes a big bend or angle in the line, making your hookset very long and exaggerated. No slack is the name of the game.

[The Quadfather]

A lot of good points mentioned here, guys. Zen-Leecher, back in the original post I was talking about fishing very deep lakes, so just clarifying that. I completley realize I am not getting a fly line down at 100+ depth. A lot of the fishing I do is either Mackinaw, or larger predatory trout, usually not high in the water column.
That being said, the Macks are often suspended in 60-80' and I have caught them there.

Since you all fly fish... you know where I'm going when I express how much I'd love to pull one of these guys up on a fly rod!
Zen.. I was absolutely considering a large arbor reel loaded with leadcore line, etc. maybe not a purist's idea of fly fishing, but it gets me in the ball park, with big sexy streamers.

Bodo, I hear ya regarding if you looked at your extended line, and there was combinations of true sinking fly lines and leadcore, etc. you definitely would have a big droop in the total presentation, and therefor ruin one's hookset.

I'll post back when I give something a try.

[Bodofish]

I'll meet you with a full sink and give a try. I was helping the grand kids with their lines sitting on the 80' mark on our local no motor lake. Hoping not to snag on anything...... Got them straightened and bam!!! One of those nice locals, 19" bow, put a nice bend in the 5wt. Got him to the boat and measured and cut him loose. Thought I was going to have to call 911 when the bait draggers watched me cut him loose. They about had a collective heart attack.
We can go in my boat, I was there a week ago and off that one spot, they were all over in about 40'. Impromptu let's go for a dip. Met up with my 80 closest friends at the dam and dumped the tub in and got away as fast as I could.

[zen leecher aka Bill W]

I was thinking of more like an 8' (or as appropriate) piece of sink tip as the depths I'd be after would be the 10-20 feet deep waters. I think that's what you would have wanted also.

[Schenk]

Sinking lines are either buoyancy compensated or not, but there is no consensus that only a level presentation with a buoyancy compensated line is the best. Some lines are indeed buoyancy compensated, but others are not and they have the advantage of moving your presentation through different levels in the water column as you retrieve, and sometimes that is beneficial to finding the fish.
If you're like most fly fishers you will find that you will want more than one type of sinking line for different situations.

For 20' deep water a type III or IV sinking line will work well if you're using a float tube or pontoon boat to fish. It is easy to control the depth of your line and fly with your tube/boat speed, or speed of line retrieval.
For deeper water, or in currents, you can go all the way up to a Type VII sinking line. I use the RIO Deep 7 for places like Rufus Woods which can have fairly strong current so the extra weight helps get the line deeper.
As a matter of fact, I use primarily RIO lines and tippet.

[Bodofish]

Not really sure what sort of marketing who ha "buoyancy compensated" is, lines either float, sink or neither. They are not "compensated", compensating would suggest that the line wasn't made correctly in the first place. Any fishing gear is marketed to catch fishermen, not fish. Rio lines are nice but I still haven't found any reason to spend more than about $10 for a sinking line, they sink or they don't. My $10 7IPS sinking line did just fine at Rufus this week, put it right on the bottom right were they like to eat those black fluffy things. I did have a chance to use my Rio Perception when I noticed a huge hatch going on, some sort of callibaetis or damsel fly-ish things hitting the surface and flying off. They were being slurped and as they took off the fish were jumping a good two feet in the air after them. It was fun to tangle with a few on a dry. I still stand by my earlier assertions that you want to use the correct line for the given situation. Fishing a lake with a sink tip is less than optimal because you don't have a straight line from the tip of the rod to the presentation. If you put a big wag in the line by using a sink tip on a floating line, you've wasted the ninety or so dollars you spent on the fancy floating line with the low stretch core. You have to make up all that slack before you can set the hook, or even feel the bite. Floating, Sinking or intermediate lines are for lakes, choose the one for the depth you want to be at. For the river, it's a floating line with the appropriate tip in place of your leader.

[Schenk]

In my opinion it would be a disservice to anyone trying to educate themselves about fly lines to not explain this.
Buoyancy, or more correctly "Density Compensated" sinking lines cost no more than a non-DC (Density Compensated) lines and they are not a marketing gimmick.
The science is simple and it provides a legitimate benefit...just as many other products do.
If a sinking line's density is constant then the belly of the fly line will sink deeper than the tip. This causes the fly to follow that path during the retrieve and the fly travels through different parts of the water column. Sometimes you want this, sometimes you don't . If you are trying to fish a specific depth then DC lines ((Density Compensated) are very useful because the entire line you have out will be at close to the same depth and your fly will travel at that depth during the retrieve. As Bodofish has noticed; in current (or while trolling at more than a fast crawl) the difference in performance between the two types of line becomes less noticeable.

Bodofish...who makes/sells a $10 Type VII sinking line? That is dirt cheap and I would like to get one. Only SA and RIO make a Type VII as far as I have ever seen and those are quite a bit more expensive, even on sale.

[Bodofish]

In my opinion it would be a disservice to anyone trying to educate themselves about fly lines to not explain this.
Buoyancy, or more correctly "Density Compensated" sinking lines cost no more than a non-DC (Density Compensated) lines and they are not a marketing gimmick.
The science is simple and it provides a legitimate benefit...just as many other products do.
If a sinking line's density is constant then the belly of the fly line will sink deeper than the tip. This causes the fly to follow that path during the retrieve and the fly travels through different parts of the water column. Sometimes you want this, sometimes you don't . If you are trying to fish a specific depth then DC lines ((Density Compensated) are very useful because the entire line you have out will be at close to the same depth and your fly will travel at that depth during the retrieve. As Bodofish has noticed; in current (or while trolling at more than a fast crawl) the difference in performance between the two types of line becomes less noticeable.

Bodofish...who makes/sells a $10 Type VII sinking line? That is dirt cheap and I would like to get one. Only SA and RIO make a Type VII as far as I have ever seen and those are quite a bit more expensive, even on sale.

Only the largest manufactures of fly fishing equipment in the world. They have lots of things on Ebay so be careful to read descriptions. They generally have what they just made so you have to watch. They manufacture for a large cross section of the companies selling in the US (and of course elsewhere.). One is Maximumcatch Fishing, pretty sure its an outlet for a number of MFG's. I looked into selling rods and reels for them and the reels came from a couple different sources as did the rods. The reel MFG's are were quite forthcoming about who they manufacture reels and parts for.... after the NDR was returned. It's an eye opener to say the least. Just too hard to deal with warranty issues across the ocean with estimated sales volumes.

Oh so let me add "Density Compensated" to the list of total bs terms. So just how to they compensate for the density of a line. A material is a certain density. As density is a measure of mass per volume I'm not sure how anyone can compensate it. If you "compensate" it, you are adjusting it and it just becomes a different density.
In all fairness, I would say a better description would be a "variable density" line, not compensated.

It's all marketing BS designed to catch fishermen. That said, I still like Rio lines and have several myself and my understanding is they make their own lines.

Here's a couple from a quick search, didn't see 7ips now only 6ips and you will have to weld your own loops as that's done by who ever they sell them to does that part and the packaging :
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Fast-Sinking-Fl ... SwrnNXP-HS
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Fast-Sinking-Fl ... 8tLiQhnp6A

[Schenk]

Thanks for the links Bodofish, I will check those out.
We can always use a good deal on gear.

I do have to respond to your claim that fly line materials have a uniform density throughout, and that Density Compensated lines are Marketing BS
That is simply not true.
Q: How the heck do you think they make sinking tips??????
A: They vary the density of the line
In reality those were the first lines to vary the density along the length to get different parts of the line to do what you want with your fly presentation.
Manufacturing technology is not still in the dark ages or something and it is relatively easy to vary the density of a fly line along its length.
It is a real thing, not marketing BS.
Those types of lines have a real benefit to those who understand how they work and use them when appropriate.

[Bodofish]

Thanks for the links Bodofish, I will check those out.
We can always use a good deal on gear.

I do have to respond to your claim that fly line materials have a uniform density throughout, and that Density Compensated lines are Marketing BS
That is simply not true.
Q: How the heck do you think they make sinking tips??????
A: They vary the density of the line
In reality those were the first lines to vary the density along the length to get different parts of the line to do what you want with your fly presentation.
Manufacturing technology is not still in the dark ages or something and it is relatively easy to vary the density of a fly line along its length.
It is a real thing, not marketing BS.
Those types of lines have a real benefit to those who understand how they work and use them when appropriate.

I'm sure sinking tips are made by adding silicon carbide dust to the plastic sheathing while it's still in a liquid state, thus making the line negatively buoyant. No fly fishing manufacturer would be caught dead using lead anymore.

I have to disagree on their terminology. I guess I'm just a stickler for the proper use of the English language and the way they're using "Compensated" is a stretch at best, that's why I say it's better described as "variable density" line. "Density Compensated" = BS marketing term, pure and simple. The way they describe it on their web site supports my assertation that it's not compensating anything but their pocketbooks. When they describe a normal sinking line, "with the thicker, heavier and denser body section sinking faster than the tip", there is no reason to think that the thicker sheathing in the midsection of the head of this line is any more dense than the tip, there's just more of it making it heavier, not denser. Density and weight are two totally different things that, they are freely interchanging, incorrectly. So when they make their line, they add varying amounts of silicon carbide to the sheathing mix varying the density (by adding a dense material) and coincidentally the weight (and sinking speed) of the line at various point along the head. Still not compensating anything. What they do in making a variable density line is make is to make it a consistent weight per inch of line so it sinks at the same speed from the tip to the butt of the head, still not compensating anything on the line. if it's anything compensated, it's a "sinking compensated" line and we already have established that the other compensation is the addition to their pocketbooks.