April is time to fight big waters and big fish. Also you must fish quite deep and slow, because water are just warming up. Even more – if you fish large rivers for chub, asp or seatrout with single handed rods distance sometimes counts. Especially for asp (Aspius Aspius) here in Latvia. So it can not be much better way here than use shooting heads. And you know it!

The question is simple – how to choose the best one for your rod. Here i will not discuss about density (sink rates) because you know better where you are fishing. Also tapers remains for different story. Length and grams are discussed bellow. If you are fishing in bushy river with a lot of obstructions choose short heads – 6 till 8 meters in length and even some times shorter. For distance cast heads up to 13 meters are optimal, but average length for 9ft rods are around 9 meters. So it`s simple 9 meters for 9 footers. I must say this is length i use most. Another story is weight. There are so many rods and lines… And there are big differences in the same weight rods and lines. It is quite easy to go wrong here. The best way is – if you have shooting head that fit`s your rod, and what is sometimes more important, also your casting style, measure it`s actual weight and you will know once and for ever what you need. If you do not have any shooting head…, hmmm, you are not in the deep trouble also. Just stay calm – call your fly fishing friend who are mad about purchasing new lines and take some heads for test. Choose the best one and then go on and measure it`s actual grams. So you do not have any friends with “spare head”. You can do it either!
If you are going to purchase shooting head in fly store instead of preparing it by yourself please do not follow AFTMA recommendations – it may be deadly misleading. If there are no marks on the packadge about grams please take shooting head out and measure it – there is always scales in the store. Here is the table I have prepared for those who are not shore about correct grams. Please note – it corresponds for single handed rods only!!

This table is based on my experience and more less you can not go a lot wrong with it. Main thing that i would like to notice – there are still some cases when you need different weight. For example average 8 wt rod with a fast action feel`s comfortable with 19 grams, but for pike fishing i use 21 grams instead. Why? With such a head (21 grams) I can cast with less speed and achieve same energy in the cast and what is more important – if i use really heavy pike fly`s this heavier head balances system better than lighter one and in other terms “will straighten your fly line with ease!!!” To be honest it is not so trivial, because if you are using the head that is on the heavy limit that your rod can handle, it is quite easy to overpower rod during casting that will result in tailing loop and what is more important – disappointment! In this case use a lighter shooting head or adjust your casting stroke – take the power off! But this is story about how to cast a a head that will follow another time.

Tags: Shooting heads

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 31st, 2009 at 19:58 and is filed under Tackle. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.