Tippet Size
 

I was out and about today and was speaking with a fellow fly fisherman and
he was discussing a local fishery where the fish were easily spooked. "I
always use a 7X tippet and I favor a size 16 Adams pattern." Without
thinking (I do that a lot), I responded, "With a 16 you would really want to
use a 4X tippet with that."

Well the discussion went on and it turns out that tippet has nothing to do
with the size of a fly (hook size to be precise and I guess a heavily
dressed fly would effect the choice of tippet as well?). Anyway, I always
used the rule of 4 on determining tippet size (size of fly divided by 4) --
I am gearing up to take on some smallies soon and will be using size 8 flies
so I be using a 2X leader/tippet. I didn't hold my position in the
discussion because I got to wondering if things have changed some with the
new leader materials etc.

So what is the thought on fly size to tippet size, anyway? If I am throwing
a size 4 popper would I use a 1X leader/tippet? Would using a furled or
poly leader allow me to select a smaller tippet than the previously
mentioned rule?

Chris

Padishar Creel wrote:

So what is the thought on fly size to tippet size, anyway?

"Rules" like this one are made to be broken. It's more like a "rule of
thumb." You could certainly use 7x tippet with a #16 Adams. It would be
best, I think, to use a fly tied with no wings (or clip off the wings)
because any asymmetry in the wings might twist the tippet. Also, keep
the false casting to a minimum.

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

On Mon, 6 Jun 2005 00:05:19 -0700, "Padishar Creel"
wrote:

I was out and about today and was speaking with a fellow fly fisherman and
he was discussing a local fishery where the fish were easily spooked. "I
always use a 7X tippet and I favor a size 16 Adams pattern." Without
thinking (I do that a lot), I responded, "With a 16 you would really want to
use a 4X tippet with that."

Well the discussion went on and it turns out that tippet has nothing to do
with the size of a fly (hook size to be precise and I guess a heavily
dressed fly would effect the choice of tippet as well?). Anyway, I always
used the rule of 4 on determining tippet size (size of fly divided by 4) --
I am gearing up to take on some smallies soon and will be using size 8 flies
so I be using a 2X leader/tippet. I didn't hold my position in the
discussion because I got to wondering if things have changed some with the
new leader materials etc.

So what is the thought on fly size to tippet size, anyway? If I am throwing
a size 4 popper would I use a 1X leader/tippet? Would using a furled or
poly leader allow me to select a smaller tippet than the previously
mentioned rule?

Chris

I would think unless the Adams was perfectly tied it would twist the
heck out of a 7X tippet. I use 5X on most size 16 flies. Rather than
going to 7X in water like that I'd add 2' of additional tippet to the
leader.

g.c.

http://www.flydealflies.com/hooktippet.html

Padishar Creel wrote:
snip
So what is the thought on fly size to tippet size, anyway? ...

I use the biggest tippet that will fit easily through the
eye of the hook. It's rare, *very* rare, when tippet size
puts off fish when everything else, ie presentation, fly
selection etc., is correct.

--
Ken Fortenberry

Ken Fortenberry wrote:
Padishar Creel wrote:

snip
So what is the thought on fly size to tippet size, anyway? ...


I use the biggest tippet that will fit easily through the
eye of the hook. It's rare, *very* rare, when tippet size
puts off fish when everything else, ie presentation, fly
selection etc., is correct.

It's not particularly rare at all. Water with complex braided currents
often require very fine tippets for dry-fly fishing, and quite a long
length of it to boot. It isn't the *size* of the tippet that's really
important. It's the *suppleness* of the finer tippet that allows a
drag-free drift. I usually use at least three feet of 6x or 7x in those
conditions.

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

rw wrote:
Ken Fortenberry wrote:
Padishar Creel wrote:
snip
So what is the thought on fly size to tippet size, anyway? ...

I use the biggest tippet that will fit easily through the
eye of the hook. It's rare, *very* rare, when tippet size
puts off fish when everything else, ie presentation, fly
selection etc., is correct.

It's not particularly rare at all. Water with complex braided currents
often require very fine tippets for dry-fly fishing, and quite a long
length of it to boot. ...

With a little experience you'll learn to fish dry flies with
4X or 5X. I use 6X maybe twice a season.

--
Ken Fortenberry

On Mon, 06 Jun 2005 18:55:40 GMT, Ken Fortenberry
wrote:

I use 6X maybe twice a season.

Once in each of your two trips?
--
Charlie...
http://www.chocphoto.com

Ken Fortenberry wrote:

rw wrote:

Ken Fortenberry wrote:

Padishar Creel wrote:

snip
So what is the thought on fly size to tippet size, anyway? ...


I use the biggest tippet that will fit easily through the
eye of the hook. It's rare, *very* rare, when tippet size
puts off fish when everything else, ie presentation, fly
selection etc., is correct.


It's not particularly rare at all. Water with complex braided currents
often require very fine tippets for dry-fly fishing, and quite a long
length of it to boot. ...


With a little experience you'll learn to fish dry flies with
4X or 5X. I use 6X maybe twice a season.

A little experience -- that's funny. I've fished about 100 days/year for
the past six years, and I started flyfishing 46 years ago at age 12,
which is probably before you were born. In the time I've fished in your
presence (thankfully, a rather short period of time), I've caught two
fish and you've caught ... none, although you were always smartly turned
out in your funny hat and your fussy gear.

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

rw wrote:
Ken Fortenberry wrote:
With a little experience you'll learn to fish dry flies with
4X or 5X. I use 6X maybe twice a season.

A little experience -- that's funny. I've fished about 100 days/year for
the past six years, and I started flyfishing 46 years ago at age 12,
which is probably before you were born. ...

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.

--
Ken Fortenberry

Charlie Choc wrote:
Ken Fortenberry wrote:
I use 6X maybe twice a season.

Once in each of your two trips?

**** you, Choc.

--
Ken Fortenberry

On Mon, 06 Jun 2005 20:30:34 GMT, Ken Fortenberry
wrote:

I mean if you can't fish you may as
well bloviate.

Oh the irony.
--
Charlie...
http://www.chocphoto.com

Charlie Choc wrote:

Oh the irony.

**** you, Choc.

--
Ken Fortenberry

Padishar Creel wrote:
So what is the thought on fly size to tippet size, anyway? If I am throwing
a size 4 popper would I use a 1X leader/tippet? Would using a furled or
poly leader allow me to select a smaller tippet than the previously
mentioned rule?

I think, even with the ****ing contest, you have gotten some pretty
wise thoughts thrown back at you (even from the two in the ****ing
match). I would hazard a guess that the dude you were discussing the
situation with might would have *just as much success* if he lenghtened
his tippet a couple of feet or so and maybe used 5x.

And I would use a 1X for a size four popper. When I fish the hex hatch
in the upper midwest, I rarely even use a tapered leader, I tie on 5-6
feet or so of 0X to the butt end and let it fly. It's night and we're
talking size 2-6 flies.

On Mon, 06 Jun 2005 20:56:39 GMT, Ken Fortenberry
wrote:

Charlie Choc wrote:

Oh the irony.

**** you, Choc.

Leg humping doesn't count, 40.
--
Charlie...
http://www.chocphoto.com

rw wrote:

It's not particularly rare at all. Water with complex braided currents
often require very fine tippets for dry-fly fishing, and quite a long
length of it to boot. It isn't the *size* of the tippet that's really
important. It's the *suppleness* of the finer tippet that allows a
drag-free drift. I usually use at least three feet of 6x or 7x in those
conditions.


At risk of getting my hand slapped for butting in so to speak, I think
there is a definite difference between western fly fishing and
midwestern/southeastern flyfishing. With the exception of the mother's
day caddis hatch on the colorado river and the few times I tossed a
streamer in the Juan and South Platte, I have never hooked a trout west
of the mississippi on any fly larger than a 20, a leader less than 12'
long, and a tippet bigger than a 6x. But I have never really fished out
west at any time other the Spring or late summer/fall when the famous
hatches have passed.

The only time I have felt the need to fish a 6x or smaller tippet east
of the mississippi have been on trico hatches in the driftless area or
midges on the southern tailwaters. I think increasing the length of the
tippet as Forty states can mimic your increased 6x-7x out east as the
bugs are bigger. So perhaps in your own little ways, both of you are,
ahem, right?

"Wayne Knight" wrote in news:1118092426.210662.74450
@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

So perhaps in your own little ways, both of you are,
ahem, right?



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.

Scott

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. This
suppleness is especially important in downstream slack-cast dry-fly
presentations in spring-creek conditions, and super especially important
when fishing for educated trout.

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

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. As an experiment, I
just took a TMC 100 size 20 hook and threaded 2x (Rio Powerflex) tippet
through the eye with no problem at all. I could probably have threaded
1x through it, but I don't have any.

Does that mean Ken recommends fishing #20 dry flies with 2x tippet, even
in challenging conditions? It seems to on the face of it. Does that
sound like good advice to you?

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

rw wrote:

This
suppleness is especially important in downstream slack-cast dry-fly
presentations in spring-creek conditions, and super especially important
when fishing for educated trout.

In particularly rare conditions like you describe above it
may be necessary to use long, fine tippets, but in normal,
and even tougher than normal, dry fly situations a long tippet
of 4X or 5X will usually suffice. And I would never fish a dry
fly downstream.

--
Ken Fortenberry

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.

That said, this is a stupid argument (no surprise there). In this case
when women tell y'all, "oh, size isn't the only thing that is important,
sweetheart..." they're actually not just helping your weak egos and
lying to you. The fish don't think, "Hmmm...now one of those critters
looks OK, but that other, wooboy, lookada cable hanging on that sucker!
It's gotta be at least 4\2 or 3 thousands of inch bigger than that
barely noticeable wisp hanging from the first critter!" and take fly #1
while running from fly #2.

Fish are geared to go after what looks like what is probably food and
bolt from anything that might even hint that them _becoming_ food is at
hand. Something that doesn't just look like food could easily be simply
ignored - that's why there's not, oh, say, an "elk-hair twig" pattern
droned on and on about. At worst, such as with particularly wary fish,
they'll instinctively get away from what seems really unnatural. Either
way, an overly unnatural appearance is the problem, and the answer is
to use whatever will give (or really, allow) you the most natural
appearance possible and still have enough other necessary qualities
("strength," durability, etc.) for the quarry and circumstances.
Often, this will translate into "the smaller, the better" simply because
of what makes it to and survives in the marketplace, but if a given "4x"
produced about the same overall presentation as a particular "7x," I'd
say it would not make a difference whatsoever which you used...at least
to the fish - Ken, Steve, and Charlie might have all sorts of fits...

Heck, in some cases, you actually need a less-supple material to turn
the fly, so you can't just form some iron-clad math "hook size divided
by whatever" rule. Well, actually, I suppose you CAN, it just won't
work.

HTH,
R

"rw" wrote

.. As an experiment, I
just took a TMC 100 size 20 hook and threaded 2x (Rio Powerflex) tippet
through the eye with no problem at all. I could probably have threaded 1x
through it, but I don't have any.

Does that mean Ken recommends fishing #20 dry flies with 2x tippet, even
in challenging conditions?

no, of course not. there exists among the vast majority of us, a sense
of reasonableness, for lack of a better word. you, on the other hand, have
this astonishing need to be literally and precisely and anally "right", no
matter what the subject, or its rational parameters.

come on, now- suppose that you could get a shoestring through a 3/0 bass
worm hook, and you tied that hook with a stimulator pattern, with the
intention of fishing the railroad ranch section of henry's fork, or some
other legendary western water, do you really think that even forty would do
it?



It seems to on the face of it.

it seems so if you want to be irrationally contentious. all things,
taken "on the face" of them, are likely to be puzzling.


Does that
sound like good advice to you?

of course not; and no one else would consider the "advice" to be as you
set it up.


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.

wayno

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."

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

Does that mean Ken recommends fishing #20 dry flies with 2x tippet,
even
in challenging conditions? It seems to on the face of it. Does that
sound like good advice to you?

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

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.

Scott

Scott

Ken Fortenberry wrote:

rw wrote:


This suppleness is especially important in downstream slack-cast
dry-fly presentations in spring-creek conditions, and super especially
important when fishing for educated trout.


In particularly rare conditions like you describe above it
may be necessary to use long, fine tippets, but in normal,
and even tougher than normal, dry fly situations a long tippet
of 4X or 5X will usually suffice.

Those conditions might be rare to you, but they aren't to me. Maybe you
need more experience.

And I would never fish a dry
fly downstream.

I figured that because you're an insufferable snob, albeit with very
little to be snobbish about.

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

"Wayne Harrison" wrote in news:lJ4pe.23051$_z6.1738231
@twister.southeast.rr.com:

it seems so if you want to be irrationally contentious. all things,
taken "on the face" of them, are likely to be puzzling.


Discourse is discourse, but taking anything anybody says about fishing in
the literal sense is a little like rising on a point of information in a
Parliamentary Debate competition. It ain't in the rulebook.

Scott

Wayne Harrison wrote:

of course not; and no one else would consider the "advice" to be as you
set it up.

It wasn't my advice. It was Fortenberry's

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

"rw" wrote in message
m...
Wayne Harrison wrote:

of course not; and no one else would consider the "advice" to be as
you set it up.

It wasn't my advice. It was Fortenberry's


no, it wasn't; it was your interpretive extension of fortenberry's
suggestion. or maybe you are right! i just think that fortenberry didn't
intend to be as literal as your interpretation.

he might well post and say, "well, of course i intended to suggest that
anyone with any sense would buy a hook with an enlarged eye, so that one
could tie on his 22 griffith gnat with an 02x leader". but i doubt it.

awh

On Mon, 06 Jun 2005 23:10:09 GMT, "Wayne Harrison"
wrote:


"rw" wrote

. As an experiment, I
just took a TMC 100 size 20 hook and threaded 2x (Rio Powerflex) tippet
through the eye with no problem at all. I could probably have threaded 1x
through it, but I don't have any.

Does that mean Ken recommends fishing #20 dry flies with 2x tippet, even
in challenging conditions?

no, of course not. there exists among the vast majority of us, a sense
of reasonableness, for lack of a better word. you, on the other hand, have
this astonishing need to be literally and precisely and anally "right", no
matter what the subject, or its rational parameters.

come on, now- suppose that you could get a shoestring through a 3/0 bass
worm hook, and you tied that hook with a stimulator pattern, with the
intention of fishing the railroad ranch section of henry's fork, or some
other legendary western water, do you really think that even forty would do
it?

Um...how much alcohol is involved? Are there any camels or giraffes in
the area? How about folks (or camel or giraffes) having relations in
cars? Are cops honking at them? Are you packing a riot gun or a James
Bond special? I mean, you go and give only the merest of details and
expect us to make all sorts of wild guesses...


It seems to on the face of it.

it seems so if you want to be irrationally contentious. all things,
taken "on the face" of them, are likely to be puzzling.

I know what you mean...think about this: douches. I mean, I understand
that any normal, average woman wishing to be REALLY clean might think,
"hey, if I shoot some water up my heyhoo, it'll wash it out." But now,
add vinegar to the mix...on the face of it, that's just, well,
"puzzling" will do. Was the first gal who thought that up just going
through a salad dressing recipe or the pantry or ??? Yep, puzzling...


Does that
sound like good advice to you?

of course not; and no one else would consider the "advice" to be as you
set it up.


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.

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...

TC,
R

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!

:)

yfitons
wayno

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...

In article . com,
says...
I have never hooked a trout west
of the mississippi on any fly larger than a 20, a leader less than 12'
long, and a tippet bigger than a 6x.


Serious? I've been fishing pretty much exclusively west of the
Mississippi for my whole life, and I hardly ever fish with flies
smaller than 20, leaders more than 10', or tippets smaller than
5x. In fact, when I'm feeling the urge to go after big trout, I
use tackle and tactics not too different from what I use for pike
here in ND.

Kevin

--
reply to:
kevin dot vang at minotstateu dot edu

Kevin Vang wrote:

In article . com,
says...

I have never hooked a trout west
of the mississippi on any fly larger than a 20, a leader less than 12'
long, and a tippet bigger than a 6x.



Serious? I've been fishing pretty much exclusively west of the
Mississippi for my whole life, and I hardly ever fish with flies
smaller than 20, leaders more than 10', or tippets smaller than
5x. In fact, when I'm feeling the urge to go after big trout, I
use tackle and tactics not too different from what I use for pike
here in ND.

I'm with you, Kevin. Western Rocky Mountain flyfishing offers a huge
variety of trout fishing. Some of it is technically demanding, but much
of it isn't. Personally, I mostly like to catch fish, whatever the
situation, but there's something about catching fish in technically
difficult conditions that makes it even sweeter.

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

Kevin Vang wrote:
In article . com,
says...

I have never hooked a trout west
of the mississippi on any fly larger than a 20, a leader less than 12'
long, and a tippet bigger than a 6x.



Serious? I've been fishing pretty much exclusively west of the
Mississippi for my whole life, and I hardly ever fish with flies
smaller than 20, leaders more than 10', or tippets smaller than
5x. In fact, when I'm feeling the urge to go after big trout, I
use tackle and tactics not too different from what I use for pike
here in ND.


I thought it was weird too. In fact I had the opposite feeling about who
uses small tippet. The only guy I ever saw fish a streamer on a 7X
tippet was from back east. I'm guessin' that just about the only waters
Wayne has fished out West have been tailwaters.

Willi

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