Presentation Sinking Line

[ Presentation Sinking Line ] [ FAQ ]

[Previous Message] [Next Message]

Date: May 20, 2006 at 15:07:33
From: ken, [pool-64-223-52-18.prov.east.verizon.net]
Subject: An open challenge to Sinking line only salt water fly fishermen


I am always hearing that I only fish with floating lies and flatwings. That is not true at all.
People are always saying all kinds of things about what I do and do not do in order to discard what they disagree with as irrelevant. I do everything including fishing with conventional tackle and from boats. There "is" a bigger world of fly fishing out there guys - then the one of sinking lines always and everywhere, all the time, at all costs and circle the wagons and protect our sinking line religion.

I also hear that I only fish in R.I. and there are rocks and that (floating line and flatwings) it is the only way to fish here.
That is also not true.
I hear that I am against weighted flies and synthetics, That is also not true. (if they work)

I know this hearsay gossip is not true because I have fished with myself all my life.

I have worked hard to learn how to use sinking lines and get the most out of them.
I have put in thousands of hours fishing with them from the west Coast steelhead rivers to the rips and deep boulder fields off Montalk.
I have made shooting heads and lead core heads long before most saltwater fly fishermen were even born and I fished them in rivers and in the ocean.
I have had a great deal of success and have had failures and I have learned from both.
I love fishing with sinking lines.
I hope I get to fish with them for some years t come but like all of us on the planet I am getting old and I know that my time here is limited and drawing to a close. That gives me a motivation t break open this sinking line trance and expose it as a delusion that is stopping saltwater fly fishing from growing up and maturing as a wonderful part of the fly fishing world. I am on a mission to break its spell like hold on peoples minds.

I know think that sinking lines are not the answer to every (most) fishing situations and that is simply because they are not.
(That is the spell that is rampant in the salt.)

They can be used in every situation but they are not the best choice for every situation.

They cast nicely and are fun to use. That does not mean that they are the first choice to go to all the time.
The ease of casting them has been the biggest asset for the use of them. They do cast nicely.
Lots of people prefer to cast nicely than to fish mindfully. (it takes less effort and yo are fishing!)
Sinking lines are a placebo that is welcome in salt water fly fishing circles.
A placebo. Pure and simple.

In and of themselves they do nothing to help or hurt your fishing success. That is determined by your own efforts.

The line you use is simply a tool that you use - not a crutch that you depend on.
There is only one reason to choose a line.
That is to present a fly with the maximum control of that fly to a fish where you want to and how you want to.
Sinking lines can help you do that.
They cannot do it for you.

I have been wracking my brain to understand why people
depend on sinking lines so much in the salt.
The only thing I can discern is that they were educated by a "clerk" in a shop and were told that the intermediate line is the basic fly line to be used in the salt and that
floating lines were for fishing on the surface.
That is what people are always told in shops.

That is hogwash!
It is simply misinformation that has gone mainstream.

Sinking lines are important but not primary.
They have never been primary. That is a new understanding that is not based on reason.
They do not do everything needed in fly fishing.
Actually they exclude almost every other option other than sinking. They are limited in function with that too!

There are many reasons for using sinking lines but none of them is primary. They are all particular to the situation at hand and only correct as an option.

What has happened because of the sinking line trance is that salt water fly fishermen have been excluded from learning about all the options and possibilities that are open to them in saltwater fly fishing.
There development as fly fishermen has been completely arrested big time and they do not want to know it.
That would be embarrassing to the experts.
It is an insane practice in terms of fly fishing mastery.

The use of sinking lines as the first options excludes all the presentation techniques that other fly fishermen have at their disposal.

It reduces fly fishing to a one dimensional cast and strip or cast and wait and strip practice. It turns fly fishing into a lure game like many other forms of conventional fishing. It is resembling lure fishing more and more as time goes by.

There is no other form of fly fishing that relies on this simplistic sinking line approach.

There is good reason for that.
It is a major handicap to catching fish consistently most (not always) of the time.
Educated fly fishermen already know that world wide.
That is fundamental.

It is easy to cast and hope. Much easier than to observe and adapt.
It is easier to do what you always do and have been told to do and catch some fish then to stop and think about other (fly fishing) ways of looking at things.
It is much easier to listen to those who do not want you to try anything new or different and can/will ridicule you for trying to learn all you can learn about fly fishing.
It is much easier socially to listen and conform to what others say you should do.

It is harder to try and learn something on your own. But if you do decide to try and learn about what others in fly fishing circles know you will find that all of the non-modern fly fishing literature is there to support you because that journey of learning from the old masters adn adding on to what is real and true is what fly fishing is all about.

Fly fishing is not conforming to sinking line only, intermediate line only, weighted fly only, insular salt water fly fishing thinking.

That is a fly fishing hacker mindset.

Just because you do not understand presentation techniques now or how to do them now does not mean that they will not work for you tomorrow.
They will and you can learn them easily and bring that knowledge over into using sinking lines much more effectively.
Sinking lines is not the problem.

Closed mindedness is the problem.
Fly fishing is bigger than sinking line only thinking.

Casting them is not a problem if you use a line that loads your rod correctly for fishing - not for tournament casting which means three line weights heavier on a modern rod than what the label says in most cases. Look at the RIO "Outbound" series and try them.

Those lines will open up your eyes to what is necessary for fishing casting.
(I am not being paid by them)
Any line that actually loads your rod will cast it easily.
Most nines are twelves - in terms of loading.
Nines sell twelves don't.
(Pretty simple once you get it)
It is grain weight not rod labels.

What I am saying is you can cast a floating line easily and far if it balances your rod.





I love to fish sinking lines. I do it a lot. I have more of them than most people.. I even have them in double tapers. That is how long I have been using them. Yo will not hear that about me except from people who know me and fish with me.

I just do not like to use them when they are a lesser choice as a strategy for catching fish that can be caught easier and more consistently with other methods.
I have working options and choices with lines and flies.
I have this "predilection and predisposition" to make choices.

That is because I have experience/s using both sinking and floating lines in many situations broader than most of you folks because of the years I have put into this.
Someday you will know exactly what I am talking about because you will have lived it and fleshed out your ideas yourself. You need time to get that done and patience.
So... I love sinking lines and like to use them.

It is pretty simple really.
IF you "Won't," learn about choices in lines then .. You have made a choice not to learn.

That is, "perhaps," a form of being reasonable.

What have you got to lose?

Your fear of trying something that works - that you do not know how to do - and are afraid to try?
looking foolish in your imagination to other people?

You won't look foolish. That is fear.

You cannot prove a negative idea except by acting positively.
"Nothing works here except sinking lines because..."
That is an idiotic statement.

You have to try something in order to learn how to do it.
If you won't try then you have not proved anything at all except that YOU "won't."

You are fixed in a limiting belief system.

I am not.
It is that simple.
I am in good company.
Those who have gone before and kept the fire of new life burning.
Those who say NO to growing in their understanding of fly fishing will not put that ancient fire out.

They will fade away and leave nothing behind.
Most of them (the new celebrities) already have disappeared.
Poof!


Posted with TalkShop version 2.71-8

[Previous Message] [Next Message]



Follow Ups:

[ Presentation Sinking Line ] [ FAQ ]