How to make custom, ultra-fast sink tips

[zOnk 0]

I've been swinging flies on my own, custom sink tips for over a decade with great success on steelhead and salmon that may be of use to other anglers who are looking to:

 

1) Sink a fly in a short distance very fast.

2) Have a considerable amount of floating fly line still on the water to manipulate and control swing speed

3) Cast easier than hunks of lead.

4) Be easily constructed out of common, inexpensive materials where weight can be modified to conditions.


Constructing these specialized sink tips is quite easy. Using a 3-5 foot section of ultra-fast sinking line, affix loop connectors at both ends. On the tail end of the extension (using varying gauges and lengths of lead wire or solder) spiral a length of lead wire around the line (as you would cover a hook shank) then cover the lead with a small section of shrink tubing (from any electronics store).

Illustrations and photo below:

 

 

 

 

[Piker20 0]

Why not use a short length of the appropriate sinking line? The lead wraps seem a step extra? Also the wraps alter the profile of the tip and may affect turn over. Short Level sinktips (10ft or less) are very good at turning over the fly.

[sandflyx 0]

to me all that weight in one place is the same as a hunk of lead, like pikey above a short piece of sink line works better, oh and I have been making lead core line tips for over 40 years.

[flytire 0]

I've been swinging flies on my own, custom sink tips for over a decade with great success on steelhead and salmon that may be of use to other anglers who are looking to:

 

well that says it all and continue to have another decade of success

 

there is always more than one way to skin the cat

[Piker20 0]

Zonk, I don't mean to sound like your tip has no merit, I would just like you to expand on the merits for me. I guess you are using single hand Rods upto 10ft with these (tips)? Are you casting or is it more of a lift upsteam and plonk before swinging round?

[Crackaig 0]

Some time ago there was an article on making a braided connector to go between line and leader. The idea was to put a length of lead wire into the braid and form a loop on either end. You can then add it when you need it. You can make them various lengths to provide differing weights.

Cheers,

C.

[zOnk 0]

I guess the best way to describe the advantage is to explain the problems I had just using traditional, high rate sink tips or spit shot on the leader.

 

The rivers I fish for steelhead have more large rocks than smooth gravel runs. Split shot didn't "tick" near the bottom but rolled from snag to snag. Each lift of the rod to release the snag pulled the fly out of the "hot zone" and the sink had to start over -- a dysfunctional method and frustrating at best.

 

The problem I encountered with traditional sink tips is that needed a high-rate sink tip to get the fly down. The sink tip had to get nearly to the bottom of the river to swing the fly in that "3-6" zone where it would be in the nose of the fish. This required a cast well upstream of the desired swing and lots of mending to sink the line before the swing could start. The "belly" in the low swinging sink tip would often wrap around large rocks before it could swing in front of the fish.

 

The extra weight on the sink tip allows:

 

1) The tip of the extension to sink before the rest of the sinking line -- providing a quick drop of the fly, a bow in the line that swung over rocks and enough sink to help the fly run flat on the swing with very little lift (until the end of the swing).

 

2) The quick sink rate allowed for a more direct down and across cast that sunk -- as opposed to an upstream cast and a lot of mending for "sink rate" set up.

 

3) The weight is distributed better than split shot and the cast is smoother than sling shoting round balls.

 

4) I've never had the weighted tip smack the rod tip. If you've ever had a split shot bounce of your rod tip on a forward cast, you know the heart-stopping sound it makes and the damage it can do.

 

This is a specialize tip -- no doubt about it. If you have to swing over large rocks and field stone, it's the shiz. If you have pristine gravel, there are other methods that would work better.

[Piker20 0]

I can see your coming to this method with the river you find.

[singletrack 0]

I find this a very intresting idea. I fished a lot of west coast surf and this looks like something that might work well for that application. There is a really need to get down quick and I never found a sink tip that sunk fast enough for me. I settled on 20ft of Cortland LC-13 which is a lead core line pretty heavy and works well. I might build one of yours to see if I could get down even quicker.