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cheesesteak

Weighted flies

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Hey Folks,

 

How much does wieght, be it lead wrap, beadhead or both, affect a fly's natural drift in the water? Is it possible to have "too much" weight when tying flies? I tie a lot of my Steelhead nymphs with both a bead head and about 7 wraps of lead. Is this too much? Should I use one or the other and not both? Thanks and tight lines.

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From my experience in fishing nymphs for steelhead, if you are not hanging up on the bottom once in a while, you are not deep enough, so let that be your guide as to whether you are using sufficient weight.

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I've never fished for Steelhead, but what JohnP posted could apply to many species. Weight in a fly is added primarily for two conditions, depth & current speed. You can vary the weight amount to achieve different sink rates for depth, but usually the stronger the current, the more weight you'll need to overcome the affects of that current & still allow the fly to get to a desired depth.

 

I add weight to flies based on familiar places that I fish. Experience has told me how much weight I need. I'll still tie with some variation in the added weight as conditions do sometimes change. If I'm fishing some place new to me, I'll guess based on as much information as I can obtain & compared to familiar places. We can really never know if the weight we add is correct or not until we use the flies.

 

I know I've experienced situations in saltwater where I thought I had enough weight added to my flies, but turned out I did not. For my own fishing, I now try to have a variety of weighted flies & sinking lines for any condition I may encounter. Even then, I'm not always fully prepared. However, most times it's due to very deep water with strong currents. I've usually got it covered well for waters under 10 ft of depth regardless of the current.

 

IMO, if you snag the bottom & lose flies on most every cast, then yes you may have too much weight. But as John said, you should be bumping bottom occasionally.

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What tidewaterfly said. No difference between steelheading and trout fishing when it comes to nymphing. Now if you are talking about swinging flies, that might be a bit different depending on the type of presentation, but essentially depth and water speed are still the most important variables.

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I fish steelhead with weighted flies all year.

my go to summer fly is my blackhills gold.

it is a woven rubber leg.

it has 2 sides of .035 lead then the entire thing is covered with .025 flattened.

I fish it on a #9 titan line sometimes with 1 or 2 #7 splitshot.

im not really touching bottom im hovering very close to it.

 

my winter go to flies are clouser minnows or jig-a-buggers with dumbbell eyes with or without splitshot.

 

my 6wt will fish the streamers without shot but wont cast the rubber leg.

it doesn't always get down deep enough for winter steelhead.

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