Tom
Shooting heads are used to cast long distance with minimal false casting.
Here in the Pacific North West we use them for steelhead and salmon fishing
although a lot of anglers are going to double handed rods these days. The
big advantage is the distance you can cast. The big disadvantage is lack of
line control on moving water. Over the years many fishermen have
experimented with various lengths and densities of shooting heads; myself
included. We even used chunks of lead core trolling line to make shooting
heads. Using this stuff really taught you how to chuck and duck. Many of the
commercially available steelhead lines of today are patterned after these
experiments. Some of us became quite skilled at splicing fly lines. There
used to be a special line splicing kit sold commercially in fly shops. I
still have mine stored away some where. You can by shooting heads at most
fly shops. They mostly come in 30 ft lengths. I used to customize my heads
so they were 10, 15 and 20 foot lengths. I would splice a loop in one end
and attach them to a weight forward floating line. The weight forward
portion of the floater was also cut back about so it was around 15 to 20
feet long. then I spliced a loop in it so I could do a loop to loop
connection and quickly change heads to meet the varying water conditions.
Cutting back the floater helped eliminate the problem of hinging in the fly
line. Originally I used a commercially available floating running line but
it was difficult to mend any line with this stuff so I started using the
weight forward floaters. If you want to see how well shooting heads work for
distance casting go watch someone like Steve Rajeff. He set a single handed
rod world record of 243 feet last year. Hope this answers some of your
questions.
Regards
Mel
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Davenport" <t...@comcast.net>
To: <vfb-mail@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 30, 2010 12:00 PM
Subject: [VFB] Not a Dumb Question #1 (Shooting Heads)
OK, Jimmy has challenged us to admit that there is stuff that we don't know
and ask about it, so here I go: I have never fished with a shooting head,
although I have read about them. Do we have any shooting head experts out
there who use them regularly? How do you cast and load them? What are the
main advantages/disadvantages? Where do you get them, and are some brands
better than others? Are they primarily made to use as a sinking line, or
can they be used dry as well? Can you switch heads for different purposes?
How far should a good caster be able to cast one?
Thanks in advance,
Tom
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