Weighting Hooks

[Guest]

You guys are driving me nuts with all your "What do I use for..."

 

Copper Wire.

 

Think about the limitless supply of weighting you'd get out of a couple small spools of stranded wire you could get at the auto supply store, Radio Quack, the hardware or marine store or your favorite blue or orange discount emporium.

 

Remember, the higher the number wire size, the smaller the wire gauge. Use fine phone or electronics wire, size 24, up through size 16 for your weighted midgies and small trout flies; use larger sizes (lower numbers) for the larger stuff. You can even build cone heads out of spiralled wire.

 

Also, you can use fine electronics solder or thin lead golf club weighting tape.

 

And for those of you who have easy access to a tieing supply store, copper wire comes coated or anodized in several colors.

 

I do all the same things you guys do, go to the craft store and all that, but if we stopped to think about it, how many of us have spools of wire hanging around from our boat wiring or fixing the table lamp or the cut ends from the last overhead fan/light fixture that went in the kitchen???

 

There are your resources for fly weighting. Have a ball.

 

P.S. - Bismuth. Weights in little plastic bags that say non-toxic, environmentally friendly and all that - available under the name Gremlin or Green Gremlin or something like that; also available around the auto and hardware sections of your discount department monster.

[Guest]

Great tip Dave! I know I'm a sucker sometimes when I buy stuff just because it is in a "fly shop" when I could buy or find the same thing for little or nothing. I do believe that if it has the Orvis name stamped on it, it will help me catch more fish

[Guest]

great tip indeed!!1 Sometimes tiers will get suckered into thinking the only thing to weight a fly with is lead....I use it sparingly.....light wire will usually do the trick where as lead may actually alter the way the fly "swims" and sink it too quickly to make it "hover" in strike zones....

[Guest]

It's rare that I want a fly to sink super quickly. Sure, I want it to dive fast in whitewater or just very fast current, but most often, I weight moderately and cast further from the strike zone to give it time to sink.

 

It's just my preference. Even when I go plastic for bass, unless I'm working deep water, I prefer a lightly weighted bait worked carefully.

[Guest]

Another often untapped source of nymph depth finding material...your dentist.

 

Next time the dentist needs to shoot some pictures of your pearly whites, ask for the scrap dental lead. It's thin, malleable, and comes in small sheets about the size of a tooth Xray. You can put it right on the hook shank, roll 'er up as many times around the shank as you feel necessary, then bind down with thread.

 

You can also cut a triangle out of it, tie in the tip of the triangle at the hook point and wrap forward. A natural taper will be built in to the underbody of your fly!

 

Jason

[Esox 0]

Another option for weighting larger hooks is a metal chamber rattle. I'll add them to larger (1/0 and up) Bunny Strips and streamers. Epoxy them on the shank just under the eye, on the inside of the hook and tie over them. Often when casting to mulitple fish, you can see one do a quick 180 to turn around and grab that noisy morsel.

 

http://www.basspro-shops.com/servlet/catal...t=SearchResults

[FISH ON! 0]

I found colored nickel alloy craftwire at a bead shop here in Madison, WI. The beads are too expensive, but the wire sells in red, green, blue, black, silver, and gold for $3.50 for 1000 yards. That's a lot of flies.

[Guest]

(Relevant BUMP!)

 

One of our newest members, 'B.C.Trouthunter', a supposed beginner, posted some wonderful stylings in the Lodge-

 

Not that he got it in the right Forum! (B.C. - - couldn't resist!)

 

Anyway, the relevancy is that skeet3t mentioned using old lamp wire to weight smaller patterns. So, this 'Tip of the Day' update, with thanks to Skeet3t for reminding us of yet another useful household discard we can justify 'not throwing away' to the better half!

[Graham 0]

I agree, great tip worth sharing. Few years ago I was struggling at the San Juan when an ol timer gave me one of his secret flies. Size 20 wrapped with black thread, four or five wraps of super fine copper wire, enough weight to break the meniscus, keep it off the bottom and in the strike zone, and a small piece of white dental floss on top for a wing, black thread head, coat entire fly with nail polish. Kicked ass for the next four days. The identical patterns tied without the small amount of copper wire did not work nearly as well.

 

Graham

 

[Guest]

Another item I have found useful is the weighted dots with adhesive on them used to suspend crankbaits.

[caughtonlures*com 0]

Awesome tip. This is on of the mean things or ideas that has attracted me to tying flies. The uncounted levels of creative thinking in materials that are so easily meant for one thing but used in another. I personaly look to the waste and scraps of every thing that I come in contact with on a daily basis. Copper is one of them. If I am not picking through the garbage at work to collect copper wire to use in my flies, being size, I am collecting it to turn in for salvage and it buys my hooks, hackle or what have you.

 

Thank you

 

Nicholas

[Catalpa_Joe 0]

I've made my own split shot sinkers for those times you need just a little extra weight out of shotgun shell shot. Used 4's & 6's. Laid them on a piece of hardwood, pine won't work, one at a time & rocked a sharp knife back & forth until it was about half way thru. Takes some time but well worth it.

[day5 0]

Size 10 stranded wire is about the same as large size 14 stranded is about the same as medium and size 18 is about the same as small. I cut it in to 15 in lenghts and strip off the insulationand stand tham up in a jar for easy use. I can get 10 feet with 15 strands in it for 2 bucks at Home depot. that is 150 feet for 2 dollars!!!!

[gmfishe 0]

Hello all,

I been lurking on this site for some time and have found it very informative.

 

I have been using lead core trolling line for segmented bodies on nymphs. I think I got it from Cabelas, I got the smallest dia....it comes with differant colored sections and you can use a waterproof marker for changing the colors.....also you can add a little dubbing to get a fuzzy look. For a flatter body, squeeze it with pliers after it is wrapped on the hook.

I know you will come up with more applications.

 

 

GM

[Isonychia 0]

...And two other great features of lead-core trolling line is that it's easily cut with heavy-duty scissors or a small pair of side cutters, and tying thread really bites into the vinyl coating. It's a breeze to do "outrigger" style flattened nymph bodies with lead-core...

 

John