Re: Why bother to learn how to use a floating line?

Fly Fishing the Surf

Date: May 19, 2006 at 17:14:21
From: ken, [pool-64-223-52-18.prov.east.verizon.net]
Subject: Re: Why bother to learn how to use a floating line?

Presentation Floating Line
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Date: August 06, 2004 at 12:30:24
From: ken, [pool-64-223-62-213.prov.east.verizon.net]
Subject: Re

That is a big question. You can do everything you could do with the retrieves you would use with an intermediate line plus you can fish slowly if you want to.

The floating line allows you to use current to bring your flies to holding fish.
You can always retrieve and use different strips and pauses in any kind of water type with any type of presentation.

You can also mend which will allow you to compensate for drag which is the biggest force that affects the presentations of flies in fly fishing.
A floating line will allow you to fish for fish that are holding in current and feeding that are not chasing baitfish or shrimp.
There are times when, based on what the fish are doing, you can dead drift a fly in the current seam that they are feeding in because they “Will not move out of that seam,” to feed.
You can cast across the current and let the current swing the fly across their position with a wet fly swing and you can swim the fly across with a greased line swing.
(See presentation article on article archives)

When the fish are chasing bait then stripping in a fly can be very effective and the floating line allows you to do that and recast at will at any point in the cast. but when they are feeding deliberately in current and are not chasing bait then its effectiveness is sporadic because the fish will not move to chase a baitfish. Perhaps the biggest revelation a salt water fisherman can have is that fish do not chase bait all the time when they are feeding heavily.
They feed in a very orderly manner and take up stations even in the surf; once you realize that and use that understanding intelligently you will catch hundreds and hundreds of fish that you would never have caught by thinking that they always chase the bait instead of the truth, which is, they wait for it to come to them.

The greatest benefit of a floating line is that it allows you to control your fly precisely and deliberately.

With “Primitive,” spin fishing the idea is to get the fish to chase your lure and grab it. The same idea is true with “Primitive,” fly casting and stripping.
Fish do not always feed by chasing baitfish allover the place. They wait for them and intercept them when they come down the current. The same is true in the surf; the fish will take up stations in the currents from the waves and feed in those currents when the waves break and the currents form.
There are various ways to fish a floating line in many different situations and they are very, very effective for the simple reason that “You,” are in control of your fly and line...

There is no one single way to fish with flies and floating lines. It is the basic, "All inclusive," method of fishing with a fly rod.
Fishing with a floating line is the traditional way to fish with a fly rod because it opens up a whole set of options for fishing intelligently and there are lots of classic books written about it.
It is the meat and potatoes fundamental method of fly fishing that is based on understanding the effect of current on your line and your flies.
You can never master fly fishing until you become familiar with the use of the floating line.
Everything about real fly fishing depends on and is built on that understanding even fishing effectively with sinking lines.
Retrieves in and of themselves are a part of fishing with a fly rod.
They are often the main focus of discussions of modern sinking line tactics but they are not the whole of traditional sinking line tactics.

A floating line gives you knowledge of the options you can use to fly fish in ways that you simply cannot do with the restrictions sinking line tactics force upon you.

There are no better sinking line fishermen in the world than the steelhead fishermen of the west coast and they all have learned their skills through understanding line control and drag and they learned it through the mastery of the floating line.

There is no way to bypass or discard learning how to fly fish with the floating line. That idea is a salt water fly fishing delusion that will handicap you tremendously for as long as you fly fish.
From the development of that floating line ability springs the use and mastery of when and how to use sinking lines. That is the way it has always been and it is not dismissible. If you do not know how to use the floating line correctly you cannot communicate intelligently with other fly fishermen from around the world about fly fishing.

All other ways that depend on the built in characteristics of specialty lines (sinking lines) are interesting but limited in use and can be and are useful in particular situations. Casting and stripping and “Chuck and chance it” is only one of the many ways you can fish with a fly rod. Why limit yourself to one option when it is so easy to learn others and expand your skills.
Come to a Tuesday night and see some other ways to use a fly rod if you can.
There are lots of them.

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