Viking Lars | Saturday, 16 July 2022
In Denmark, most fly fishers fish all four seasons. Well, I’m not sure if most do, in fact, most probably don’t, but a lot do. Some species are legal to fish year round, some of them with restrictions during spawning. Some are present year round and some not. Of course the rivers are closed during the winter to allow trout and salmon to spawn.
I’m not picky, I fish for most of them and that does involve some different kinds of tackle, some of which obviously sees more use than others. A lot of the tackle I use for different kinds of fishing, which involves primarily switching lines on reels. I will be the first to admit that I have a lor of lines, but they all sees at least some use, some of them certainly not every year.
Maybe the amount of lines is the reason that the sinking shooting heads I use on my 6-wt rods are lost - no where to be found. I’m usually quite systematic in storing my gear, so I don’t know how they got lost, but I most likely left them on a beach somewhere.
I use sinking shooting heads a lot in general, even in the salt on on still waters. In the salt mainly for sea bass and mackerel. I also fish a few spots for sea trout with a steep drop-off that can be fished very effectively with a sinking shooting head from a pontoon boat or float tube. Since they’re lost in the great unknown, I went to order some new ones. I love the modern, multi density shooting heads available, especially for the two hand rods and river fishing in general. For still water (salt of fresh) I prefer standard, single density shooting heads and I’ve been very particular to Scientific Anglers’ old design. No fuzz about them at all, just a standard taper on the AFTM-mark. They’re not making them anymore, unfortunately.
So I bit the apple and bought weight forward lines in stead. Chop-chop, loop-loop and they will make excellent shooting heads. So why not just use them as WF-lines, some will think. I could and I have done so and one advantage is that I think I get a bot more depth when the running line sinks. I’ll often use 2-3-4 different densities over a fishing day and I just don’t want to carry that many reels and/or spools. Changing to another shooting head is faster and in the pontoon boat, far, far easier.
The Tour de France is on right now, I love cycling and a Dane is in the lead and other Danes are winning stages, so it doesn’t get much better. I often tie flies as I watch the stages and today, I’ll be chopping perfectly good WF-lines into shooting heads. Just to make even less sense, I’ll keep loop the running lines (turning them into shooting lines, terminology is important). Just to make some experiments.
The mackerel are arriving soon, the first few has been caught, so I need to get the lines ready.
Have a great weekend!
Lars