S5, Ep 103: Fly Line Essentials with Mac Brown

Marvin Cash: Hey, folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of The Articulate Fly. We're back with another Fly Lines Essential with Mac Brown. How you doing, Mac?

Mac Brown: I'm doing great. How are you, Marvin?

Marvin Cash: I'm just trying not to melt. It's pretty damn hot down here in the flatlands.

Mac Brown: Yeah. Got a little warm today. I think we got up about 85 here today, which was warm, but I feel pretty blessed considering what they showed on the news this morning all across the Midwest in the triple digits. I thought, well, we're pretty lucky.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, absolutely. And so this time we're going to take a dive into sinking lines. And I thought, you know, maybe you could kick it off, Mac, and just kind of talk about kind of how they're made.

Mac Brown: Okay. Mainly there's... The core is different, and usually it's a solid monocore. And so it's much thinner than a floating line or an intermediate line, because the flyline then is basically tungsten powder that they mix in with the coating, PVC coating.

And what that does is it enables you to build it much, much thinner than, say, a floating 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 close to half the diameter, at least just from looking at it and feeling it in your hands.

Marvin Cash: 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 lines before you fish them.

Mac Brown: Right. Yeah. Especially if it's cold, like cold weather in the winter. Because normally when we're throwing them, like on the lakes a lot in the winter for trout, which usually in colder weather, and it really helps to just... Or even stretch them out, like as I'm pulling them off the reel.

Just stretch, then let it drop. Pull another six feet. Let it, pull it, stretch it, let it drop. Because a lot of times it wants to hold memory because of that solid monocore.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, got it. And 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 Brown: Sure. Well, 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 would 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. And usually glass lines. We call glass lines for intermediate. And they're a little bit, 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, 3 line, 4 line, those are going to sink a much slower rate. Then a higher number, like a 7, 8, 9 is going to sink, you know, much quicker, like 5 to 8 inches a second. And for the higher the number.

And so we choose those based on what is the layer we're trying to get to, you know. And so 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 because fish would look up always before they're ever looking down below.

Marvin Cash: 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 Brown: 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 3X or 2X on these on... For trout anyway on lakes that's usually what would use for fishing, you know, deeper and it'd be a much shorter, just a straight piece of 3X, you know, 3 to 4 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 4 to 5 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 Cash: Yeah, it does. And you know, and one of the things too we were talking about is obviously, you know, when you're strip a 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 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 Brown: Right. And that helps a lot with keeping it horizontal on the retrieve, just helping bring it across at a horizontal level. There's a time we want them to stay horizontal if it's depending on what, you know, trout species that they say rainbow, like to feed more in the horizontal. And I think that's true from the lake fishing that I've done over the years.

And I would say brown trout tend to feed more in the vertical, up, down action. So if we were on Loch Leven 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 Cash: 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 Brown: Oh yeah. So you won't over, you know, 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 where it was, you know, 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 would look for the black lines coming in on the Sharpie, you know, to know where that would be. But I think it's a big improvement to have them just a total color change and you can just glance at it and you know instantly.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, you know, at least for me, you know, I don't fish a lot of sinking lines and particularly, I get frustrated when they're really, really heavy. You know, because your fly is 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 maybe some tips for like how to cast these rigs with these sinking lines.

Mac Brown: Okay. Yeah. Usually on the lakes. Well, it's different on lakes, in 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, because they try to pick it up and make a cast, but it's like sunken concrete. You gotta 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 of.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, 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 water load that does that actually lets you load the rod on the backcast, right?

Mac Brown: 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 the river a lot too, when I'm retrieving, 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 2 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 got a lot more time casting in the air. So that's what you're trying to break people of. 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.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. And then we were talking too that, you know, a lot a way to handle the fact that these lines don't, they're just, they don't cast as well, is to cast with an elliptical casting stroke.

Mac Brown: Yeah, I think that helps a lot. When I'm going to those higher ones like the seven, eight, nines, it usually works better for sure. Throwing those elliptical casts like off to the side and coming back over vertical. Yeah. Just from the, it just helps to keep them.

It still doesn't fix the problem of the, 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, of course, and you're going to have to have some storage system.

A lot of times I use my little finger than 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 caster 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 knot 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 fish in those higher densities is, is they have a lot of tendency to get, you know, little tangles and stuff when you're shooting it out.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. 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 are just not as long, right?

Mac Brown: 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... A lot of times I'll leave a perfection knot, you know, a needle nail knot coming into the flyline. And that way the sink tip part has a loop already on it. So you can switch those out really quick.

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. When 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, for Spey casting and skagit, you know, two handed casting. But they also make a lot of good ones, you know, for single.

But I like having them. I think the arrangement that I carry usually is like 6, 8, 10, 12. And those are in different, different grains of weight, you know, so the sink bigger, like the 12 footers heavier. And it'll get down, it'll take a fly down deep and like a bigger deeper hole.

And I think those are really handy. I 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.

Marvin Cash: 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 going to probably get really tired of the way they hinge on your flyline.

Mac Brown: That's right. Yeah. I mean, they drill a little bit hinge, 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, put some, put some small, you know, wet. You could put two or three wet 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 leader 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, I mean, then you work them up as the fish get real active up near the surface.

Marvin Cash: Yep.

Mac Brown: 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. They work great.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. And, you know, you're feeling super generous too. You, 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 wanted to share with folks.

Mac Brown: Oh, yeah, yeah. Let's talk about who brought the elliptical cast. North America. Whoever, Whoever answers that. Let's do it. One of the flyline 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 them pick a flyline.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, and so, you know, folks get that in sooner rather than later in the way it'll work is 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 SA flyline.

And speaking of SA, you know, want to thank them for their generous support of the series. And folks, remember, you know, we're collecting questions and the last episode that we're going to do is going to be a Q and 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 and A episode, we're going to enter you in a drawing for some SA lines of your choice. So, you know, thanks to the folks at SA, I think it's super generous of them.

So, folks, send us your questions and, 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 and 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 you owe it to yourself to get out there and catch a few. Tight lines, everybody. Tight lines, Mac.

Mac Brown: Tight lines. Marvin.