# Questions about sink tip set up



## meisjedog (Oct 4, 2010)

I have an 9' 8wt St.Croix Legend Ultra w/ wf8 line and recently purchased a RIO 15-ft. Intermediate Sink Tip. I'm not sure what is the best way to attach the tip, it does come with a loop, but I'm worried about hinging. I could do a splice which is fine, but I'm not sure If it necessary and it would also make switching to poppers tough. I'm also not sure if I should keep the tip at 15ft or cut it down to 13 or even 10 as some suggest. If I cut which end do I cut(loop)? I primarily go for Bass or an occasional Golden Bonefish, so should I use a short leader? 3-5ft? Should I cut down a tapered bass leader? As for as tippet, I usually use 8lb mono. My regular set up is wff8 a 8ft tapered bass leader and 2 or 3ft of the 8lb mono. I'm worried about the cast-ability of this sink tip setup and I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction. The tip alone was $21.95, so I'd like to know what I'm doing before I start cutting 

Sure, I could just put a sinking line on another spool, but I like to do things the hard way.

thanks


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## fallen513 (Jan 5, 2010)

If you're using a sink tip, tie your fly on a very short tippet (12"?) & then directly to the sink tip. 

I would use the loop to loop connection & not cut anything. I find roll casting sink tips to be fairly easy & will help with the hinging. 


It's definitely going to be a different feel.


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## beadhead (Nov 14, 2007)

I'm fairly new to sink-tips and sinking lines, but I've had some success fishing them for SM and LM bass in lakes. Like fallen said, it's a different feel, but once you figure it out, it's fairly easy to make long casts with a stiff breeze blowing in your face.

I've done well with fairly short leaders, i.e. 2'-5' long. Longer leaders aren't necessarily problematic for casting, but they put a long underwater "belly" or "sag" in the leader that makes strike detection that much harder.

Check out Lefty Kreh's method for casting sinking and sink-tip lines. It's basically involves roll casting, then using an open- or loose-looped back cast combined with a regular forward cast.


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## fallen513 (Jan 5, 2010)

When I use my own homemade sink tips, I strip away the tungsten from the last 6" of tip & tie a surgeon's loop. 

I then take an 18" section of strong tippet, tie another surgeon's loop & then loop-2-loop those two. 

No need for a leader when using a sink tip, you want your fly getting down as quickly as possible.


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## Andrew S. (May 22, 2010)

Go to Dan Blanton's web-page, and under the tackle and techniques part, read the article "Getting Looped" and the one about "Mix and Match" shooting head systems.

Both articles discuss effective ways to temporarily (i.e. loop-to-loop) connect sections of fly line, whether we're talking about shooting heads to running lines, sink tips to the rest of the line, etc.

Hinging is a myth.


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## fallen513 (Jan 5, 2010)

Andrew Stoehr said:


> Hinging is a myth.



Or rather, hinging is a casting error.


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## Andrew S. (May 22, 2010)

When I say hinging is a myth, what I mean is that what people often feel and call hinging isn't in fact being caused by the nature of the connection between two line sections. What people feel and refer to as hinging is that "jerk" that you can feel at the end of your forward and back casts when you're using a sink tip, heavy shooting head, or whatever.

People tend to think it's caused by the fact that the loop-to-loop connection is often made of some material that is more supple than the rest of the two line sections being joined.

But my understanding of this, based on my own experiences and in discussions with casters with a better background in physics (and casting) than I have, is that what's really causing the lack of a smooth unfurling of the cast, or a "jerk", is due not to the connection but instead due to the fact that you've got a section of line that is, relatively speaking, much heavier than the rest of your line. In other words, it's sort of as if you were trying to fly cast a lead sinker, although of course the effect is much smaller.

You can separate a standard floating weight forward fly line (or any other standard weight forward fly line, for that matter), and then rejoin it with loop-to-loop connections, and it will cast as it always has. I use a lot of shooting head set ups, many that I've made by doing just that (i.e. cutting the heads off of my fly lines). They cast just like a standard fly line.

But throw on a section of dense lead-core, for example, and things change. And yep, you need to change your casting style to reduce the effects of that jerking. So in that sense, one could certainly say that hinging is due to casting error (except that "hinging" is still, in my opinion, a misleading term because it implies the wrong cause).


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## fallen513 (Jan 5, 2010)

That Lefty Kreh video up there ^^^ is very insightful as to how to change your cast up too. I learned to cast that open loop with big wet streamers & heavy clousers. Makes a world of difference.


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## meisjedog (Oct 4, 2010)

Thanks for the info, I'll just have to do a little trial and error.


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## fallen513 (Jan 5, 2010)

If you are mainly fishing lakes from shore or rivers for carp, a sink tip may not be necessary. Using a 9' leader with a clouser you're going to get pretty far down in the water column. If you're wanting to fish heavy current or relatively light flies, that's a different story.


I like to tie very sparse minnow imitations that practically float, and then use a sink tip to get them down to depth.


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