Fishing - Tippet Size

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- - Tippet Size (http://www.fishingbanter.com/showthread.php?t=17617)

drag-free drift. I usually use at least three feet of 6x or 7x in those
conditions.

I know this thread started off as question about tippet
formulas, but the the subject of 7x came up, and that
caught my interest.

I never use 7x. I know a lot of people--including many
veteran spring creek and tail water guides--do use 7x.
But I don't it, ever, and never have.

I had good luck (catching fish and accumulating tips)
guiding the spring creeks near Livingston MT for quite a few
years, using 6x at the smallest.
I even had my share of days when my clients took the
daily prize (as per Bob Auger's log book on DePuy's).
I don't guide any more, but I do still fish the spring creeks
and tail water fisheries a lot.

I just don't think 7x buys you much in terms of added strikes, and it
does mean you'll be lucky, at best, to land a big fish
if and when you hook one. Sure there have been plenty of 20" plus fish
landed on 7x. But even in expert hands actually landing one the
exception. It doesn't make sense to me, to tire a fish almost to death,
just so you say you used 7x.

Scott Seidman wrote:
rw wrote in
m:

Scott Seidman wrote:

Well, actually, if you read Ken's original reply, he basically said
so long as presentation was good, use the biggest tippet you can. He
never said that there aren't cases when using a smaller tippet would
improve presentation. He also never said rw was wrong.

As you say, he recommended using the thickest tippet that would fit
through the eye of the hook. Those were his words.

To quote is original reply

"It's rare, *very* rare, when tippet size
puts off fish when everything else, ie presentation, fly
selection etc., is correct."

Fine tippet is often crucial to presentation, depending on where you
fish, of course.

Your reply to him basically said that without a small tippet,
presentation can suck. Do we agree with that?

No, we can't agree with that. Fine tippet (6x or 7x) is required for
presentation in difficult and challenging conditions, and especially in
complex braided currents over educated fish. That's all I said. My
meat-and-potatoes tippet is 5x, but I can leave it at home when I
dry-fly fish somewhere really serious.

Well, that falls outside
of the "presentation is correct" area. Only somebody going out of his
way to find fault would think that Ken rules out going smaller when
conditions so dictate.

I'm just taking Ken at his word: Use the thickest tippet you can fit
though the eye.

Do you really think that Ken was advocating using 2x with a size 20 fly,

No, I don't. I think he just posted a contrarian but incorrect opinion,
as is his style.

or are you really just trying to justify going out of your way to compete
in yet another ****ing match with Ken? If you insist on an answer to
your question, no, I don't think 2x would be very good advice, but I
wouldn't have a real problem with trying 5X, which is what I think Ken
would be using on a size 20, given some of his comments in this thread--
and then he'd try 6x if 5x wasn't working. I'll give his exaggeration,
if any, a free pass. The "biggest tippet you can poke through an eye"
advice is something I've read any number of times, though, sometimes
printed by people who catch more fish than me.

Even if you were dinging your catch rate by going up in tippet size,
there's still something to be said for it. Your catch might survive
better.

Ah hah! The "torturing the fish" argument! I always find this amusing
coming from someone whose pastime is hooking fish and reeling them in.
With a typical 5 wt. rod you can play a fish as hard with 7x tippet as
with 5x tippet, or even with 2x tippet. The more critical factor is the
size of the fly. OK, you can't point the rod at the fish and drag them
in across the current with 6x or 7x, but I don't play fish that way.

Personally, I'd use the biggest tippet I could if I fished one of those
perversions of nature, the tailwater of the west, where monster trout sip
tiny flies. I just don't think I'd enjoy fighting a big fish to near
death on a 7x or 8x tippet. I probably wouldn't catch many fish, but
that might be why I avoid conditions like that. That's not to say I
would break off a big fish the moment I realized I was undergunned, cause
I don't think I would, but if I knew I was as likely to catch an 18" fish
as a 12" fish, I'd feel bad to be using a tiny leader.

OK, now you're getting into the "eastern fishing" vs. "western fishing"
issue. Good work! Go for it, Scott!

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

Wayne Harrison wrote:

wrote

Oh...well, at least it's good to know, at least on the face of it, that
you wouldn't rule out _us_ fishing together...

that's the problem with you ****ing texans: you all presume so much!

:)

That's funny.

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

Wayne Harrison wrote:

you really are a very strange person. not to say that i wouldn't fish
with you, or you with me. you are just very strange.

Thank you. I'm getting along just fine. Hope you are too. Life is very,
very interesting.

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

On Mon, 06 Jun 2005 17:37:34 -0600, rw
wrote:

wrote:

On Mon, 06 Jun 2005 16:35:14 -0600, rw
wrote:

Ken Fortenberry wrote:

Well, OK then, you probably won't learn how to fish dry flies.
But maybe you can write a treatise on the "suppleness" of 3 ft.
of 6X versus 3 ft. of 4X. I mean if you can't fish you may as
well bloviate.

A treatise isn't necessary. Some challenging flyfishing experience and a
basic physical understanding and intuition will do. Three feet of 7x
floating on the surface is *far* more supple than three feet of 4x.

No, not necessarily, it isn't. "7x" and "4x" are simply another way of
stating diameters in thousandths of an inch, and that in no way speak to
material, physical properties or characteristics (other than diameter)
such as density, opacity (I think that's the word - how much light goes
through it and/or what else light does with regard to it), "strength,"
etc.

Have you ever heard of the phrase "all else equal"?

Well, all else equal, and IIRC, I'm reasonably sure that I have...I
think...

No?

YES! YES!

I didn't think

And so how in the hell is that anyone's fault but your own?

so.

So what?

That expensive college education can't buy common sense and
engineering acumen.

And apparently, neither can a modest holding of Apple stock and some
early retirement savings...at least not at Ketchum, Jr. prices, again
apparently...

What did you major in? Psychology? English Lit?
Communications?

Drinking...well, and sex...and I do seem to remember something about
PoliSci, Business, and Law, but that might have just trying to count my
change after having talked the cute cashier into selling me liquor
underage...

All else equal, a three foot length of 7x tippet is *far* more supple
than a three foot length of 4x tippet.

All WHAT else equal? And there, Mr. Hemingwannabe, will be your
answer...well, OK, so it won't be YOUR answer, but it will be the RIGHT
answer...

rw wrote:

With a typical 5 wt. rod you can play a fish as hard with 7x tippet as
with 5x tippet, or even with 2x tippet.

Bull****

Willi