Fly Line WeightWritten by Brett Fogle
When choosing weight of fly line, base your decision on size of flies you will be casting. Choosing right line will make fishing much easier and more enjoyable for you.0 – 2 weight: For ultra-light freaks. Designed to handle smallest flies in smallest waters and making most delicate of presentations. A short 1 wt rod and a 1 wt floating line will make that 6-incher feel like a whale. Casting range = 30 feet. 3 – 4 weight: Also for fishing small flies and making delicate presentations. These are very common for stream fishermen and also very effective. Not overkill for small stream trout, able to handle larger trout and ideal for some of smaller warm-water species. Casting range = 30 – 60 feet. 5 – 6 weight: The most common and practical weight. Will easily handle most trout and pan fish flies up to size 6. This is rod most popular with Western fly fishermen and can be used in just about any trout fishing situation. Considered by many to be one rod weight to have if you were to only have one rod. Casting range = 50 – 80 feet.
| | Spring and Pawl Drag Fly Fishing ReelsWritten by Brett Fogle
The first type of drag system is traditional Spring-and Pawl-drag. Just because this drag type if traditional doesn't mean it's outdated. In fact, spring-and-pawl fly reels are ideal for trout fishing, particularly when using light tippets. When line is pulled out of a quality spring-and-pawl fly reel, it is pulled out very smoothly indeed. There is no "jerkiness" or "unevenness" in tension that is applied to line. The line instead leaves reel at a very smooth rate, without any variations in amount of tension. By getting rid of unevenness in tension, fly reel goes a long way towards protecting tippet.Try to think about it this way. You have a large fish on line. The fish starts pulling out fly line at a good rate. Then, tension on line suddenly increases then slackens again. What happens? If you're using a light tippet, you're fish is gone, that's what. The sudden increase in tension in rate fly line came out of reel parted tippet material. Its not much different than giving a good jerk on fly line when you want to break fly line because of being hooked on underwater logs or rocks. So, moral of story is this. A quality spring-and-pawl drag system is excellent for most trout fishing situations, particularly those where you will be fishing using light tackle and tippets. What's drawback of a spring-and-pawl drag fly reel? They are not designed for very large fish, like large bass, steelhead, salmon or saltwater species. While they work, they don't work as well as newer disc-drag models discussed below.
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