Transcript: Fly Line Essentials with Mac Brown
Transcript
Marvin:
[0:04] Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly.
We're back with another Fly Lines Essential with Mack Brown. How you doing Mack?
Mac:
[0:12] I'm doing great. How are you Marvin?
Marvin:
[0:13] I'm just trying not to melt. It's pretty damn hot down here in the flatlands.
Mac:
[0:18] Yeah, it got a little warm today. I think we got up about 85 here today, which was warm, but I feel pretty blessed considering And what they showed on the news this morning, all across the Midwest and the triple digits, I thought, well, we're pretty lucky.
Marvin:
[0:32] Yeah, absolutely. And so this time we're going to take a, take a dive into a sinking lines.
Mac:
[0:36] And I thought, uh, you know, maybe we, you could kick it off Mack and just kind of talk about kind of how they're made.
Okay. Um, mainly there's a, the core is different and usually it's a solid mono core.
Line it's probably I hadn't miked it lately to see a di5 compared to a floater or di7 but I would guess it's it's close to half the half the diameter at least just from looking at it and feeling it in your hands.
Yeah and the interesting thing too we were talking before we started recording that you know with that, core it really kind of helps to stretch those I'm pulling them off the rail, just stretch, then let it drop, pull another six feet, let it, pull it, stretch it, let it drop.
Cause a lot of times it wants to hold memory because of that solid monocore.
Marvin:
[2:00] Yeah, got it. And then you want to kind of, you know, decipher kind of the, you know, you said like Di5, you want to kind of walk people through kind of how manufacturers generally describe the sink rates.
Mac:
[2:13] Sure, we start off really intermediate would be first, and intermediate, there's a lot of different intermediates, so they're not all created equal, but some are designed to be like a quarter inch of sink rate a second.
I know it sounds like, well, that's not much, but a lot of times we're throwing them over, say, a grass flat that's really shallow.
We'd want to have one that sinks like really slow, see if you could throw it out and wait, you know, 10, 15 seconds, start retrieving.
And then there's other ones that are half inch to an inch, usually glass lines, we call glass lines for intermediate, and they're a little bit fatter, but they're still going to sink at a much slower rate.
Then we move into the, basically the smaller the number, like a DI2 density, you know, three line, four line, those are going to sink a much slower rate than a higher number, a seven, eight, nine is going to sink, you know, much quicker, like five to eight inches a second and for the higher the number.
And so we choose those based on what is the layer we're trying to, to get to, you know, and so that's, that's kind of what makes up that decision.
And I guess usually it's best to air up high before you go, you know, far down. It's because fish would look up always before they're ever looking down below.
Marvin:
[3:34] Yeah, not to mention that usually you're using a little bit stouter tippet material and you get hung up and it's a little bit more work to get your stuff back.
Mac:
[3:43] That's right. And let's talk about that real quick too. The tippet, there's no tapered leaders or any of that.
We're usually using a 3X or 2X on these, for trout anyway, on legs.
That's usually what would use if we're fishing deeper and it'd be a much shorter, just a straight piece of 3X, you know, three to four feet to the first fly.
If you're running a single fly, if you're running, you know, multiple flies, then it would be same thing. It's just be straight 3X.
You just daisy chain a dropper, put another four to five feet, daisy chain another dropper.
It would work like that. But if we're throwing a single fly, you know, like say on a river, like on a tailwater or something, we might be throwing a single and then you could come down to 20 inches even, you could have it that close.
So that makes it easy.
Marvin:
[4:33] Yeah it does and you know and one of the things too we were talking about is obviously you know when you strip a kind of a traditional just say traditional sinking line it has a tendency to pull the line up from the bottom and then it sinks back down so you kind of get a a jigging presentation but you know kind of one of the great things that SA and other manufacturers have done is they've created these density compensated lines.
Mac:
[5:00] Right and that helps a lot with keeping it horizontal, on the retrieve to help and bring brown trout tend to feed more in the vertical up-down action.
So if we were on Lock 11 in Scotland where it's all brown trout, then naturally we'd want a line that does go up and down.
So, it's just about understanding what it is you're, I guess, going after, you know? But that's a big improvement, having density compensated.
Marvin:
[5:34] Yeah, and then of course another improvement, we've talked about this before, is that the manufacturers now are color-coding, right, the head versus the running line, which is, you know, really helpful when you're casting the line.
Mac:
[5:48] Oh yeah, so you won't exceed what the head length is and those are really nice.
That's a really nice progression compared to when we were kids it was always just the same color. So you just kind of had to look and be aware of where it was fatter and where it got skinnier.
And in the old days we used to just take sharpies and have to mark them up ourselves and we'd look for the black lines coming in on the sharpie to know where that would be.
I think it's a big improvement to have them just a total color change and you can just glance at it, you know instantly Yeah, absolutely.
Marvin:
[6:22] And you know, you know, at least for me, you know, I don't fish a lot of sinking lines and particularly I get get frustrated when they're really really heavy, you know, because your flies way down you got to get everything back You got to get the line back to the boat, you know Why don't you give folks that maybe some tips for like how to cast these rigs with these sinking lines? ends.
Mac:
[6:43] Okay, yeah, well usually on the lakes, well it's different on lakes and the river really, but if we're on a lake, we're usually hanging it quite a bit of time after we retrieve it, retrieve it, and we usually wait up to 20, 30 seconds when it's about 30 feet from the boat.
In other words, the flies are still deep and we're hanging it because what the assumption is the fish probably followed it if you threw out a big cast, 80, 85 feet, you probably had some follows that might not have eaten it yet and then once it sits there and looks at it when it stops a lot of times they'll eat it after 10-20 seconds and so we do the hang a lot so then when we're ready to cast from the hang we want to keep that amount of weight out there because we don't want to bring it in short of course because then it's going to take longer to get it back out far so we'll leave that same 30 feet out and do a pickup just do a roll cast pickup forward and that'll bring that weight up near the surface and if it didn't do it all in the first pickup, just do another one until you see it all jump up and go.
And as soon as it jumps up and goes and go ahead and make you backcast and you've got it back aerialized to let it go. But that does frustrate a lot of people, even on the rivers, you know, cause they try to pick it up and make a cast, but it's like sunken concrete.
You got to first bring it all up to the surface.
And you do that by usually just giving a pickup, you know, a roll cast pickup in front.
Marvin:
[8:03] Yeah.
Mac:
[8:04] And I guess that you don't necessarily have to, for lack of a better word, lay the line out like if you were casting a floating line you're really just trying to get it up kind of in the top of the water column so that you know you get a a water load that does that actually lets you load the rod on the back cast right yeah that's the trick is just keeping it out because once i hang stuff even on a river or a lake when i hang it because i hang it on a river a lot too when i'm retrieving um when i'm bringing it back towards the end i'll start to you know fish real slow and i might hang it for a minute and fish real slow like doing a finger crawl with the line but when I'm ready to cast it I guess one of the biggest things over the years just you know on trips and teaching casting a lot is people tend to bring it in too short so just think of that if you had 30 feet out when your leader is only two feet like we said on a river well if you had that 30 foot out you can go ahead pick it up and go ahead and bomb it back out really far because you shoot line in back shoot line in front BAM you're back at 80 feet but the big mistake is just from sitting in boats guiding a lot over the years is people bring it back in short. Now we're in trouble.
If it comes back in, there's only five, six feet of it out. Now we're going to waste time. We waste time. Now we're not efficient. Now we've got a lot more time casting in the air.
So that's what you're trying to break people up. It's just the habits of leaving enough mass out there where they can pick it up and let it rock and roll without wasting time, false casting a bunch. Yeah.
Marvin:
[9:28] And then we were talking to that, you know, a lot, a way to handle the fact that these lines, they don't cast as well, is to cast with an elliptical casting stroke.
Mac:
[9:43] Yeah, I think that helps a lot. When I'm going to those higher ones like the 789s, it usually works better for sure throwing those elliptical casts like off to the side and coming back over vertical.
[9:59] It still doesn't fix the problem of... The big thing I'll say, I mean the cast, yeah, elliptical is what I usually cast when I'm casting the heavier ones, but it's the line management of the line that's sitting in the boat, or if you're wading a course and you're going to have to have some storage system.
A lot of times I use my little finger, then my ring finger, then my middle finger.
I'll put big coils on each finger and then you can point your fingers when you're shooting forward.
But it's the tangling of those higher density lines that's an issue.
And so one thing that really helps if you're on a boat is just to lay a wet towel.
Put a wet towel up where you're standing and have that line as you strip it sit on that wet towel and that kind of helps helps it stick and helps it manage.
I mean because every fifth cast even for a good cast or even coming off a wet towel about every fifth or sixth cast a lot of times you're going to start to see a tangle.
Well then you got to stop and it's really tiny like I said and then you've got this weighted line that's all in a big mess just because you shot it out and of course it got a not somehow.
So you never see that with the glass lines or the floaters. I mean, you never have that happen, but that's the only drawback of fishing those higher densities is, is they have a lot of tendency to, to get, you know, little tangles and stuff when you're shooting it out. Yeah.
Marvin:
[11:17] And then I guess, you know, the last wrinkle we really have is that, you know, people can buy sink tips, right?
You know, say you're predominantly fishing floating lines, but you, you know, every now and again, there'll be like a deep pocket you want to fish, or you want to kind of swing deep across a bank, right?
You can basically buy sink tips that kind of behave a lot like sinking lines they're just not as long, right?
Mac:
[11:41] Yeah, exactly. A lot of them are set up where you can just loop to loop, you know, the end of the line, or if you have a lot of times I'll leave a perfection knot, you know, a needle nail knot coming into the fly line, and that way the sink tip part has a loop already on it, so you can switch those out really quick.
You know, just pull your leader off and put that on.
You can actually leave the fly already rigged up on it, and then you get out of that type of water where you want to go back to your regular leader, just switch off the loop again, and you're ready to go.
But those are really advantageous. I have a kit. They make them a lot for spay casting and skagit, you know, two-handed casting, but they also make a lot of good ones, you know, for single.
I like having them. I think the arrangement that I carry usually is like 6, 8, 10, 12, and those are in different grains of weight, you know, so they'll sink bigger, like the 12-footer is heavier, And it'll get down it'll take a fly down deep and like a bigger deeper hole, And I think that's a really handy I'll leave them in the boat a lot when I'm working and I'll switch I'll switch off like that a lot on different pools on the river if we're floating a Lot of times that makes all the difference, you know, just to get it down where it needs to be Yeah, and it's certainly cheaper than buying a bunch of lines I think you know kind of the one knock on that system is if you find yourself fishing them a lot you're gonna probably get really tired of the way they hinge on your fly line.
[13:04] That's right. I mean they drill a little bit hinged but for what they get done for putting up what I like about them is you don't have to deal with tungsten or brass or glass or any of that you just you can make those connection changes quick and just put some small you know wets you could put two or three wets still off that same arrangement and you know your wets are down, you know, further down.
Then as the hatch progresses, you can come up lighter, lighter until you're back up to just a liter with them back up near the surface, you know, but usually that's how most hatches progress in the spring.
You want to have them deeper, you know what I mean? And then you work them up as the fish get real active up near the surface. Yep. But yeah, I don't think a lot of people fish the hinges like we're talking about putting those different.
Different tips on, you know, they're just sink tips. They have a sink tip wallet.
I'm sure they still make it. I've had them for years. SA's made them for over 30 years. I've used theirs. They work great.
Marvin:
[14:03] Yeah, and you know, you're feeling super generous too. You know, I'll talk about our kind of our normal question gathering and promotions and drawing stuff, but you have a special offer, for lack of a better word, you you wanted to share with folks?
Mac:
[14:17] Oh, yeah. Yeah. Let's talk about who brought the elliptical cast to North America.
Whoever, whoever answers that, um, let's do it. One of the fly line, um, giveaways for that, like who brought the elliptical cast to North America.
And whoever answers that correctly, then we'll see the questions and answers come in and then whatever the first one is, Marvin, let's go ahead and let him pick a fly line.
Marvin:
[14:39] Yeah. And so, you know, folks get that in sooner rather than later in the way to work as You can either email it to me or Mac, or you can hit us up on our Instagram channels, DM us, and the first person in with the right answer will set you up with a new essay fly line.
And speaking of essay, I want to thank them for their generous support of the series.
And folks, remember, we're collecting questions. And the last episode that we're going to do is going to be a Q&A episode, but the way it works is send us your questions. You can email them to us or send them to us on social media.
And if we, you know, we'll collect your questions, and everyone that sends a question in is going to get in a drawing for a signed copy of Mac's book, Casting Angles.
And then if we pick your question for the Q&A episode, we're going to enter you in a drawing for some essay lines of your choice.
So thanks to the folks at essay, I think it's super generous of them.
So folks, send us your questions, because if you don't play, you can't win.
And remember, next time we're going to talk about shooting lines, and I think the episode after that is going to be line care and maintenance.
And then we're going to have our Q&A episode and you know, it's pretty hot out there. If you can't fish for trout, you ought to go maybe catch some bass or panfish and yield it to yourself to get out there and catch a few.
Tight lines, everybody. Tight lines, Matt.
Mac:
[15:54] Tight lines, Marvin.