[t_richerzhagen]

In using heads, does a section decreasing from belly down toward running line in thickness help in the flight of the head? Not quite like feathers on an arrow, but helping smooth out the flight. I notice that all WF lines I have seen have this feature and they seem to fly a little better than heads, if not so far.

What is the experience of the Board?

 

[JDJones]

rear tapers

I am assuming that you are refering to 2 hand rods and Spey/Skagit casting.
I was under the impression that Ed Ward built a rear taper into his original line so I did so with mine. Ed refered to it as "holding line" I like that. It is much easier to hold a fly line against the cork than it is to hold mono shooting line.
As to whether it aids in the flight, I'm not sure. But I am of the opinion that having that rear taper inside the guides helps load the rod more than if it were skinny line, or mono.

 

[t_richerzhagen]

No

JD I am talking about heads in general for overhead or Skagit casting. I know Ed's Skagit heads have a rear taper and they seem to help the line fly and land well.

So it is a question of improving the characteristics of the lines flight. I have tried some heads, overhead and spey that do not fly well. Also, some that do well on one rod and not so well on another, where you had to pull some of the head into the guides.

 

[juro]

Interesting question!

Two things I do know about rear tapers:

1) it allows more length to be shot into a overhead false cast without introducing a hinge effect

2) if you let it overhang completely while spey casting it will kill your cast, in other words it looks like the back of the head but it really is not sufficient to turn a spey head over unless stripped into the guides or even to the hand sometimes (holding as mentioned)

Therefore we can assume that the more gradual the back taper, the smoother the turnover provided the working length of line is not exceeded. A zero back taper can be stripped right to the tip for spey casting but a long back taper requires a little inside the guides.

But your question is, can we assume that it helps the aerodynamics of the cast in flight? I don't think this is an easy question to answer. It has more weight than running line, but probably offers more rear stabilization.

I didn't know Ed uses a back taper for "holding line", very interesting. That's simlar to the idea we had on the coast for managing shooting heads with slickshooter running like, i.e.: the "redzone". The idea is to add 18-20 ft of a fat running line via blind splice to the slick shooter permanently. Then shooting heads are looped to this line, providing holding and overhang slip control for overhead casting. Sean already did it for his Atlantis running line and likes it a lot. I've been thinking about it a while but didn't try it yet, will do it shortly, maybe with the miracle braid because it makes such nice internalized loops (it's a braid already).

I know one thing, if manufacturers started to put long back tapers on their spey lines I would prefer the color change to occur where the operative length of line is found, not at the junction of the back taper and running line.

Interesting discussion, I hope some of the scientist types chime in

 

[mattzoid]

Ted, you know it’s funny you ask that. I’ve been overheading with a variety of lines and heads and have never really been happy with what they do a 100 feet out, especially if it’s windy. Part of the reason is my cast. I just started video taping myself and have discovered a lot of flaws, but that is another story. So I started looking at the heads I have and finally broke down and bought a caliper that measures in thousands of an inch. Most of the Rio heads I use are level line with a short taper at the leader end. The butts are level or may only have a foot or two of slight taper. Airflo has a couple feet of taper to the running line and a long taper to the fly. I found I was migrating more toward Rio because level line worked better in the wind. Didn’t look better, but it did cut it’s way through. Last week I got a wild hair up my fighting butt and tried a line that I had bought on sale, but never used. It was a SA mastery series wind master for the salt. It has a long thin taper starting at the running line and increases in diameter all the way to the fly. It underlined my overhead rod, but I liked how I could false cast out from 30 to 70 feet and then shoot. So now I’m cutting and splicing together a head with 20 feet of intermediate which tapers back to the running line for 45 feet. The fly end will only have a small taper of 4 or 5 feet then it’s diameter will be around .070. This will decrease all the way back to the running which is .030 in diameter and then spliced into mono running line of .021. I’m aiming for a 65 foot head around 700 grains. I know I can throw a 30 foot, 700 grain head 70 to 80 feet. I don’t know what will happen when I try to shoot my home made wind cutter/master style head. I’ll let you know how the experiment goes.

In summary, I think rear tapers to the running line are best. They are essential on my Skagit lines and rods so why not on the overhead.

 

[t_richerzhagen]

Ed's back taper

Juro, the formula Ed posted has about six feet of rear taper, then a holding line the length of the rod, followed by slick shooter. The holding line would become part of the "flight back taper" for the line. I would use something similar if I were using mono for running line. I usually use coated running line, so I do not need the holding line and only have a six foot rear taper for my Skagit style lines.

Matt, it sounds like you are doing something similar to Peter SC in cutting and reversing a WC for some applications.

 

[mattzoid]

Ted,

Do you remember what thread that was?

Matt

 

[t_richerzhagen]

Matt

Copy of Riveraddict thread

OK folks, here it is. Keep in mind that the information being given is for private use only, and that the dimensions and concept of this line are not to be used for any commercial endeavor. The only person having my o.k. to build this line for anyone other than themselves is Homer2handed. If you do not have the resources to build this line, Homer is the guy that can do it for you.

Starting from the back end of the line - 22.75" of 10 weight, 35" of 11 weight, 94" of 14 weight, 85.75" of 12 weight, 86" of 11 weight. This makes up the belly. I would suggest building it one foot longer (on the front end) and then you could trim back if it feels heavy. The weight I shoot for is 406 grains. The floating tip that works phenomenally on this belly is 8' 10" cut from the front of a number 9 line, weight = 82 grains. The sinktip I have been using is 8' of Airflo Custom Cut 200, weighing in at around 80 grains.

This line will make any one of the three rods I have talked about into a very potent fishing machine. If you do not find this line to be far higher in performance than any other, then you are probably not getting the sustained anchor casting concept quite right. I won't be able to help anyone on that until next Fall. Have a good Summer folks!

 

[mattzoid]

Opps, I meant Peter SC's ideas behind cutting and reversing the WC for some applications.

I have that thread of RA's in Word (plus several other heads), complete with my own drawings of the head to scale and the bizarre math I use converting it to this and that. For some time I have tried to see if there were correlating factors between head designs. I discovered there are only correlations between individual heads by the same caster and not heads from different casters. Go figure, everyone has there own style.

All this math and supposition has helped me to construct heads for overheading and other applications. I’m almost done building my first wind master/cutter saltwater false casting thinga ma jig doo hicky head.

 

[t_richerzhagen]

Send Peter a PM

I am sure he will be glat to tell you about his efforts with the reversed WC.

 

[Dana]

Bruce Richards on rear tapers

From his book Modern Fly Lines (p. 87):

"All else being equal, lines with long rear tapers are generally more controllable than lines with shorter tapers, and they cast distances more smoothly because of the more gradual transition of mass in the rear section of the line."

 

[juro]

Dana -

Could you post the ISBN # please? I drew a blank on Amazon with keywords.

I have learned a lot from Bruce's writing on-line. In recent correspondence I failed to collect the details of his actual book(s). I would guess others would be interested in obtaining them too.

thanks in advance

 

[Dana]

I think his book is only available directly from him.

 

[juro]

Thanks Dana! I will contact him via email.

 

[o_clarki_clarki]

For all you line guru's....I am using the Loop Adapted Line, 33ft 432 grain head. What line can I use to make a tail and should I splice the lines or leave the loop connectors connected?

Thanks,
Vinnie

 

[mattzoid]

Hey Vinnie,

Is that the 8/9 with the orange loop or the 9/10 with the blue loop? I have both and I was going to run them through my calipers to see what kind of taper they had. I may end up adding the tapered tail section to them too. I need a floating version of my wind master/cutter saltwater false casting thinga ma jig doo hicky head. Also, what kind of rod are you throwing it on and is it overhead, underhand or Skagit casting that you are doing?

 

[o_clarki_clarki]

I experience the crashing also,very disappointing!! I think this line casts very well with type 7 or better tips on my Meiz 1356. I have tried a score of different lines and the Loop gave me consistent results.

Matt:

I am using the low float for 8/9 (olive). I think a tapered tail will dramatically improve the way the line shoots and rolls the head out. I use mostly standard spey casting, as my arms are held pretty high on my stroke the Loop head works wonderfully. Without the tail section, I can overhead cast out to 80+ feet with regularity. I enjoy casting this line because with the rod combination, the line flies out with little effort and just a flick of the rod.

Vinnie

 

[sean]

For my orvis type 6 head I spliced on 20 feet of the back taper and running line from a 250 grain deep sea head that I never use. The back taper is only a few feet before it transitions into the running line.

This setup is pretty rocking. It is much easier to slip line into the backcast and maintain control of with that extra section of beefier running line.

The one thing though is you will need to splice the running line into the back of the pvc running line. Loop connections will not work here because of the disturbance through the guides. It is just enough with braided loops to really crap out the cast. I did a blind splice and that did the trick. However now I lost one of the advantages of shooting heads, interchangeability.

-sean

 

[mattzoid]

Vinnie,

My Loop head 8/9 (all white with an orange loop) is pretty level line at .077 to the last 9 feet at the tip where it tapers down to .048. So if you want to tap into the rear of that head, you will want to be under that .077. Most rio and airflo tips start at about .060 and taper down to .050. My Airflo 10/11 tip is exactly .064”x.053”x15’. 432 grains divided by 33 feet is 13 something grains per foot which is more like a 12 or 13 weight line. So a 12 weight floating tip reversed at the butt of that head may be the ticket. If you keep all the loops intact, it would be a snap to see if it works for you without having to splice. Also, one more thing to ponder. My 8/9/10 WC tip II, 30 foot upgrade would fit perfectly reversed with its .077 end running 30 feet down to .053. In other words, a 63 foot head. That middle section weighs 354 grains plus the Loop head of 432 grains gives you whopping 786 grains of bazooka. A bit much for the Meiz 1356. BTW, the 12 weight floating would add about 145 grains.

Sean,

I’m trying a new splice on my pvc to mono connection I just thunk up, but maybe somebody else already did. I’ll strip the pvc down to a couple inches braided core. Insert a wide needle though the center of braid to the inside of the pvc. Insert my .021” mono maybe half an inch into the pvc if I can with some kind of glue and then the braid core can act like a sleave over the mono. Wrap the braided core over the mono with #8 tying thread and super glue. Then a whole sleeve of Cortland braided mono #30 over all of that with the usual whipped finished ends and softex painted over that. That has to hold longer than the mono. Either that or my head is going to end up around the prop of the first troller that comes by. Te He, Te He.

 

[JDJones]

I’ll strip the pvc down to a couple inches braided core. Insert a wide needle though the center of braid to the inside of the pvc. Insert my .021” mono maybe half an inch into the pvc if I can with some kind of glue and then the braid core can act like a sleave over the mono. Wrap the braided core over the mono with #8 tying thread and super glue. Then a whole sleeve of Cortland braided mono #30 over all of that with the usual whipped finished ends and softex painted over that.

Been there, done that. It pulled out. What I have done is strip the pvc off about 3 or 4 inches of the tail end of the line. Use that to tie an Albright knot to the mono. Coat that with cyanoacrilate tire cement. (Black sh** available at hobbie stores) Play with it as it dries so that when dried, it makes a smooth connection that will go through the guides easily.