Fly Fishing Tackle – Line Choice

Fly Fishing Tackle – Line Choice

Caught on which fly?

What is the first thing all beginners ask when they meet another fly angler who has caught fish? Well, I know what 90% of people would say the first question would be…………”what fly did you catch your fish with”. That is really an irrelevant question, the question should always be ” what line where you using and how did you fish the line, when you caught your fish”. What fly they caught their fish with is an irrelevant question because the answer back could be “a damsel” for instances. The Damsel fly can be fished at all depths in the water, you can fish is near to the surface on floating line, mid water on an intermediate line and way down on a sinking or fast sinking line.

We need to know where the fish are feeding in the water, what band of water are the fish moving in, when you find the answer to that you will certainly catch fish if you follow the basic instructions. So how do you go about selecting the correct line, as a beginner, how do you go about buying the right line so you can fish at all different depths? Well, I will answer those questions in my next 3 blogs, I am going to cover the basics of Floating Line, Intermediate Line and Sinking Line.

Of course, if you do ask the question “what fly did you catch your fish with”, you might be able to work out what line and depth they were fishing at, for example, if the fly angler was using a dry fly you would be pretty certain they were using a floating line, the same with a wet fly or buzzers, but not always, I have caught many fish on fast sinking (Di8) line with buzzers.

Keep your eye out for my blog posts over the next few days and I will go into the detail and explode the myths around line selection!