PaulD
Well-known member
Don't try and understand a fly line, try it.
If it's good for you, it's good.
I've used the Mastery distance / competition series of lines for casting for the past 15 years or so.
Don't try and understand a fly line, try it.
If it's good for you, it's good.
Don't try and understand a fly line, try it.
If it's good for you, it's good.
Don't try and understand a fly line, try it.
If it's good for you, it's good.
Only and ***** would buy a dozen lines just to see whether they like them.
Ah.... now I get it!
Therein my point sits. Despite going down this specific rabbit hole for 15 years plus and spending no doubt thousands of pounds (scary when I think about it like that) the best way to judge a fly line is to try one.No, no no! The point of doing this is to try to understand why lines are made the way they are and what purposes they can be best put too. To get an objective view. If you're hinting that it's subjective, art not science I'll scream.
Only and ***** would buy a dozen lines just to see whether they like them.
Ah.... now I get it!
Therein my point sits. Despite going down this specific rabbit hole for 15 years plus and spending no doubt thousands of pounds (scary when I think about it like that) the best way to judge a fly line is to try one.
If your a Newbie or only fish a couple of dozen times a year just buy a Grays platinum ( do they still exist?) Rio Gold or Snowbee. After that us cork sniffers should meet in a darkened room in our anoraks to discuss. Don't put people off or confuse the matter, in the bigger picture there are a multitude of things that will make fishing more enjoyable rather than the rear taper of your 5.089 wt forward fly line.
In the spirt of this being a learning experience I will say one last thing.
If you find a fly line you love buy several immediately, rest assured the manufacturer will change the taper/coating/weight next season promoting it as an improvement, it rarely is.
It's not bull, it's called marketing to consumers.If you guys can't agree on something as fundamental as that I'm calling bullsh1t on (almost) the entire thing.
If you guys can't agree on something as fundamental as that I'm calling bullsh1t on (almost) the entire thing.
It's not bull, it's called marketing to consumers.
Learn casting, presentation, entomology , read a decent fishing book (written in the last 20 years), hire a guide or buddy up with an experienced angler, change techniques throughout the day if your not catching, fish lots of different waters, get a handful of confidence flies , a good flask and a decent sandwich will all make your day better and you will learn more than studying line tapers.
I think its the best 'understanding' thread/thing yet, and just heading into the interesting bit, you know the territory, theory versus experience, personally I think you need both but the OP doc is already the most informative one stop peer reviewed(can I say that?) comprehensive information available.
That's kind, you'll find that it's now twice the size of the original OP.
Yes, just looked, would be nice more concise but I not sure if it could be, I don't anything I'd remove and there is maybe more you could add!
It's no finished yet - we've only just got to the interesting bit.
I need an answer to which profile where. If I can't get that I'm going to write an interesting conclusion and recommendation...
I think the circumstances dictate, for me its about back cast space because that is what I don't have for longer casts, so short head and shoot rather than long belly to carry a long line, others might have completely different circumstances to dictate, using a lot of roll casts, short river casts, boat fishing, all must set up a different set of circumstances needing or suiting a different line profile.
Complex but this is this is the stuff the beginner doesn't know before buying a line.
Can we therefore generalise and say what type of head would best suit these sort of situations then
River, upstream dry and nymph - overhead cast
River, down and across - roll casts
Small stillwater (shortish casts)
Large stillwater (longish casts)
Loch style, drifting boat - classic 3 wets
Or to put it another way, I use a Barrio GT90 for all those that has this profile
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Why should Iuse anything else?
So how do they pick a line? Colour, Price, my granny had one.Not sure, maybe, you need more input, more heads on it is where it gets thrashed out, it occurs to me very few fly fishers would pick a line based on what they are trying to achieve with it!