Sinking lines for trout / Salty sinkers / Boobies

We place about 5 markers starting from the point of the flyline. The markers are made with a tiny winding of flytying floss wrapped around the flyline and afterwards coated. We use a 10ft rod. If I feel the first marker passing through the top eye I know there is about 50 ft of flyline + leader out in the water. When I continue the retrieve I feel the marker in my hand and just afterwards I'll feel the next marker passing through the top eye then I know there is 40ft + leader hanging out.

- Trout sometimes tend to to follow the flies but don't take. If you stop at a certain point during the retrieve and wait (sometimes up to a minute), just let your fly hang out, suddenly out of the blue they take the fly. If you have a marked flyline you will very soon discover that the takes are often happening at the same point. It is just a matter of finding the right retrieve and stopping at the right point. This fishing is called "on the hang".

This kind of flyfishing is done from a drifting boat with the wind blowing in your back. The long leader (20ft or more) is built up with 3 flies and 4X all the way. One fly at the point , one fly on a middle dropper and one fly on the top dropper. The flies are unweighted in order to control the depth. Very import is to use the right hooks for your flies. Point flies are tied on have wire hooks (eg: Drennan traditional wet) middle dropper flies on medium wire hooks (eg: Kamasan B175) and top dropper flies on a normal wire hooks (eg: Kamasan B170). You can also play with the size of the hooks of the same wire size (size 8 on the point, size 12 in the middle and a size 14 on the top). If you look in our flyboxes you'll see plenty of flies of the same pattern but all tied on different types of hooks.

As an example: A start can be to cast out a DI 3 and wait for 15 seconds. Start a fast figure-of-eight retrieve. As soon as you have just 30 ft of flyline, ...stop. No response? Continue with slow pulls till you have 10 ft of flyline out and stop again and wait, wait and wait. No response? Do the same but start playing with the moments of waiting and various types of retrieves. No response? Switch to a flyline of a different sinking rate a DI 5. Still no response? Use a DI 7. This way of flyfishing. is challenging and asking a lot of concentration and continious counting from the flyfisher. Allthough we are presenting the flies deep under water we know exactly where they are, how they are behaving and what to do to get the fish attention. I often see people using sinking flylines but they have no clue what they are doing or even more if they catch a fish they don't know out how it happened.

As you know, we usually teach the use of very short leaders when going deep..... HOWEVER, the long leaders have their place in scenarios such as you have described.... especially if you wish to have either a dead drift or hovering of the fly at a particular depth.

While I have never done it, I have a friend who fishes deep in lakes. He has studied the temperatures with a thermometer which he lowers ... this is capable of recording the temperature of the water at different depths. When he finds a temperature difference of any significance, he concentrates on that depth.

Ted Juracsik (who manufactures Tibor and Billy Pate Reels) is a member of our fishing club and a dear friend. While fishing off Chokoloskee, he uses a video camera which he can let down in the water on a cable to actually see the fish !!!! One interesting discovery, was a line of demarkation between the very cloudy water near the surface and the clear water near the bottom in areas where we had assumed that the entire water column was unclear !!

We were in competition with another fishing club..... fishing wrecks and reefs off Key West. They won hands down. One reason ? They would drift over a known wreck or coral outcropping. While doing this, they dropped a skin diver overboard to check out the fish. If none, they wasted no time, quickly moving on to a different location. When doing this over a huge wreck in 50' deep water, they even determined that the main school of fish was on the upcurrent end of the 680' wreck .... not at the other end where thay are usually located.

One of the Key West skiff guides has developed a floating crab fly for permit fishing. He fished it on an intermediate sink or intermediate sink tip line and long leader. A tiny slide sinker is used on the tippet adjusted to the height of the grass on the flat. The idea is to have the sinker, leader and line on the bottom while the fly hovers at the tips of the grass spears.

Hi Gordy,

I'd like to congratulate Bruce on his retirement.

Fly fishing the Northeast from a center console lends itself to many days having to fish a heavy sinking line to be productive. I have found that a heavy integrated sinking line with an intermediate running line fished on a short leader with a heavy sparsely tied natural material fly or a weighted synthetic fly to be the most effective. People new to casting sinking lines seem to find integrated lines a bit more easier to handle.

Need to be sure re. terminology. By "integrated", do you mean a sink tip intigrated with a floating belly & running line ? Or are you referring to a density compensated (uniform sink) full sinking fly line ?

Fishing Plum Gut and the rips and the Race East of the Eastern end of Long Island (Orient Point) there are some very deep areas and incredable currents. We used to use sinking heads. They were a nightmare to control ! Now we use full sink lines when the fish are deep. The moment they break on the surface, we run for the birds and fish on top. G.

A technique that helps you get the maximum depth from your sinking line is casting in the direction of your drift at about a 45 degree angle from the boat whether you're fishing from the port, starboard, bow or stern, and as Gordy mentioned make a few stack roll mends. If the drift is reasonable your line will sink like a brick as you pass it...you may roll mend a few more feet of running line out...watch your fly line and when the running line begins to straightened with little or no slack in it (you've reached your maximum depth) begin stripping.

When staked out or anchored, the same technique can be used by casting up current. G.

Often times the fish will take the fly when it is traveling horizontally in the deeper part of the water column and when it begins to head to the surface the fish will follow and refuse the fly. An observation I've made is if you reach your rod tip into the water and continue to strip you will extend that deep horizontal presentation a bit longer and produce a few more strikes. Don't forget to rinse rod tip thoroughly with fresh water when done fishing.

Yes. As we pointed out previously, some species tend to take as the fly is dropping deeper and deeper. This includes Atlantic sailfish, wahoo, some tuna and African pompano as well as permit in deep water over a wreck to mention a few. I've had smallmouth bass take that way when fishing the St. Lawrence River, too.

A few years ago, we had a session on taking care of your fly tackle when used in salt water. We'll revisit that someday. Basically, EVERYTHING should be rinsed in fresh water and dried after each day of salty fishing as the very least one can do !!! G.

Sinking lines are another tool we need to utilize and master to be successful as instructors and fly fisherman.

GROUP,

I'VE BEEN FISHING BOOBIE FLIES IN FLA FRESHWATER FOR A FEW YEARS.

IT WAS INTRODUCED TO ME BY FRIENDS FROM THE U.K. RICH AND GIN FORD.

I USE IT TO FISH DEEP DURING HOT WEATHER. FISHED ON A SINKING LINE THE BOOBIE FLY SUSPENDS OFF OF THE BOTTOM AND CAN BE DEADLY.

CAPT. JOHN HAND
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