[Rick Baerg]

Anyone out there using Fluoro? I have been using it for quite a few years now; for personal use and guiding. I will never go back to mono, especially for steelhead and salmon; its is stronger, its sinks and invisible in the water.

 

[Fish Finder]

Floro all the way.. For rivers and still waters.

Finder

 

[stone]

I use a lot of flurocarbon as well. Definitely like the abrasion resistance, and how quickly it sinks. I agree that it's definitely much less visible that mono...but I used 4x fluro in a spring creek in Washington a couple of years ago, and the fish could definitely see it.

 

[fishortho]

OK all this talk and new posts on flyfishing, but if fleurocarbon sinks, it's a no go for dry fly fishery, no?.....I use it for almost everything else..Apparently berkley vanish is excellent....comments?......Ortho 8)

 

[stone]

Depends on what dry fly you're fishing, Ortho...fluro tippet isn't going to sink a large caddis imitation, or even a larger Adams. If you're fishing emergers or small dries on the otherhand...then fine mono tippet would probably be better.

 

[fishortho]

Thanks, Stone...........you use fleuro with the boatman too. so it dips on the strip or do you have to use some extra weight?

 

[stone]

Hey Ortho:

WHen I use a floating boatman pattern, I just use whatever is tied on the butt section already...more than likely it's usually fluro anyway. I use a sinking line with a floating pattern to imitate the dive of the bug, so the tippet doesn't play much of a role. Can't go wrong with stronger, thinner, and less visible though... :beerchug:

 

[Bill Parker]

Depends on what dry fly you're fishing, Ortho...fluro tippet isn't going to sink a large caddis imitation, or even a larger Adams. If you're fishing emergers or small dries on the otherhand...then fine mono tippet would probably be better.

Thats what I was going to say as well... If I am steelheading with bigger flies that don't need to float Fluoro is the way to go, but If I am going for little brookies, bows or browns in the creeks with dries, I use Maxima chameleon.. works good to let the fly stay buoyant but I always add some of the floatant to the first couple of feet to keep it floating

 

[fishortho]

Hey, Bill....what is the best "floatant" for a leader/tippet?......Ortho 8)

 

[stone]

Ortho...just use whatever you use for your dry flies. I use the 3M stuff myself.

 

[slamdunk]

I also use Flouro, and yes if you look at it from the surface down, it looks invisible, but have you noticed that it still creates shadows on the lake/stream bottom? Big, visible shadows.
I think the trout, (and perhaps other fish?) who, one foot below surface and looking upwards, and can only see 22 degrees to the surface, must be able to see the shadows created by the line.
Comments? I'm curious.

 

[Centerpin]

I switched to flouro for almost all my fly fishing several years ago after being taken to school by my fishing partner one day, when the only difference between us was he was using flouro and I was using mono. Once I switched to the flouro I was matching him fish to fish, Best lesson ever...


Centerpin 8)

 

[FIRE-FISH]

Is all fluoro pretty much the same? Or is there some that are better than others? I have yet to make the switch to fluoro, but am definately doing so this year. Any thoughts on the diferrent brands would be appreciated!

:beerchug:

 

[sarg]

For me it really depends on the fish I am targeting and the water conditions. I think that there are situations for both.

 

[stone]

Fire-fish: Strictly from a flyfishing perspective, I remember years ago when flurocarbon first started to hit the market in numbers, the cheaper ones were labelled fluro, but they were very brittle and didn't have any tensile strength. Most of the modern fluro are very good...of course they also cost several times more than their monofilament counterpart.

One very important thing to remember as most of us splice flurocarbon tippet to monofilament leaders...make sure you look at the diameters of the leader and tippet that you are using. Your monofilament leader must ALWAYS be at least one thousands of an inch thicker than the flurocarbon tippet that you are using. For example, if you are using a 3x leader (usually rated to around 8lb test), then you would be safe to use up to a 4x flurocarbon tippet). You need to do this because fluro is a lot harder than mono (which is why it is a lot more abrasion resistant), and if you don't pay attention to the diameters, then as the knot joining the two materials get tighter when you're fighting a fish, the fluro will slice right through the mono and you'll break off.

HTH.

 

[HOOK]

i guess mostly cause i havent switched to Fluro yet im confused by this 3x, 4x or whatever thing. what do these mean?

I mean mono is easy 6lb, 8lb, and so on which makes it easy to match up.


what if i was to use ALL fluro for leaders on my fly rods. how would that work? obviously the same but also a bit different?

 

[sarg]

#X measurement does not just apply to fluorocarbon and I believe it refers to the diameter of the line. This is very important when creating your own leaders as the lbs test is a factor but how well the leader will perform is based on the #X. When constructing a 12ft leader you might do 2ft of 1x - 4 ft 2x - 6ft 4x (as a basic example). The lines lbs rating may not reflect the X rating > so when making leaders basing it on the lbs test is not that effective and can result in a poor leader design.

 

[FIRE-FISH]

WoW!!...ok, now I'm REALLY confused! ??? Call me primitive and simple, but all's I've ever done is just tie some 4 or 5 lb mono onto my fly line and used that as my entire leader. Seems to have worked ok for me, but then I've just mostly trolled flies. This is an excellent thread though, cuz I've always wondered what those numbers meant, as Hook mentioned earlier. And I never really understood the difference between a leader and a tippet. Thanks for all this great info! O0

 

[sarg]

if you are trolling around a lake then what you are doing is just fine. I find when casting longer leaders 20 feet + a quality made leader will make your life a LOT easier. :thumbup:

 

[11th Warrior]

i guess mostly cause i havent switched to Fluro yet im confused by this 3x, 4x or whatever thing. what do these mean?

Breaking Strength (lbs) Leader or Tippet Rating
15.5 0X

13.5 1X

11.5 2X

8.5 3X

6.0 4X

4.75 5X

3.5 6X

2.5 7X

1.75 8X

The weights listed here are for Mono lines. Fluro lines will have a slightly higher tensile strength. Hopefully that clears it up for you. When you buy your leaders (and tippet material) make sure it matches the size of fly you're using as well.

It's funny that this topic comes up today. I just spent $30 on leaders ($2.00 each for Scientific Anglers), can't beat that.