I agree with Jere,
I think shooting heads are only useful where the extra distance they afford
is absolutely necessary. When fishing for trout that extra distance is not
normally necessary and in fact I think many angler's get in the habit of
casting too far. Shooting heads, especially standard 30 footers, can be a
pain to cast and deal with even under the best of conditions (which assumes
a stripping basket.) A 45 footer is much easier to handle because you can
get out enough line to load larger rods effectively before the shooting head
is through the guides (the primary limiting factor to casting shooting
heads.) Granted, steelhead and salmon fishing are some of the best examples
of a possible need for shooting heads.
Keith
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday, August 17, 2000 2:45 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Fly Line Question
My thoughts on shooting heads. You've got a line that is long, a DT which
takes up the maximum space on a spool and you are using a 4wt which is at
the
upper limits of the reel (ie) 3-4 which means it is made for a 3wt, or 4 wt.
You've got 2 shooting heads if you cut your DT in the middle! 45ft of
shooting
head that gives you lots of room for backing. However, in a 4wt. you more
than
likely want to trout fish; short casts with no premium on distance. The
shooting head would mean that on a 35 ft cast and now you mend,let out 10 ft
of
line in your presentation etc., you now are holding backing in your hand.
I,
personally, do not like that and would rather have a floating flyline to
strip
etc. However, there is a positive side. You could often get great
satisfaction from the fish that "tore into my backing!" This would work, but
I
think that a WF line would work better on your reel. They fish, virtually
the
same in the lengths you would be fishing with, and the WF would provide you
with plenty of backing. Jere
> Sean Ransom wrote:
>
> > Hopefully this question makes sense and sorry if it is a no-brainer-
> >
> > I just purchased a Cabelas Drake II 3-4 fly reel. I guess it is supposed
> > to hold 75 yards of 20lb backing. My question is that I can barely fit
> > any backing line on the reel if I put all 90' of my DTF4 fly line on the
> > spool there is no room for backing.
> > I really have not even come close to going into backing line but my fear
> > is if I get into bigger fish i will and will not have enough line. I
> > mainly fish small rivers but am starting to get into lake fishing. I
> > cannot cast farther than 50 feet as it is so I am seeing no need for all
> > that fly line.
> >
> > So the question is : How much actual fly line will I need? Can i just
> > cut off 20 yards from the back end of my flyline to accomodate some
> > backing line?
> >
> > Thanks for the help.
> >
> > -sean
>
> You might look into a shooting head. 30 ft of a DT and the rest is all
mono
> backing. I can probably get you more info if you're interested, just let
me
> know.
>
> Darin
>
>
>
