02-19-2014, 12:11 AM
Weight – Fly line weight is an industry standard measure of the actual weight in grains of the first 30 feet (9.1 m) or 9.1 meters of fly line. So there is no difference in the first 30' of DT or WF.
A traditional weight-forward line that does not have an elongated belly and rear taper designed specifically for mending and nymphing tends to transition quite quickly to a smaller-diameter running line. In situations where you want to get a long drift by feeding line downstream as your indicator drifts in the current—or just by making a longer cast, let’s say 50 feet—and then being able to mend from the tip of your rod all the way to the indicator, a DT is great. The reason for this is that the diameter and mass of the line stays fairly constant when you get farther into the line, whereas if have a WF line and you have a lot of line out, you are trying to use the fine-diameter running line (which has way less mass) to move the belly and the head—like trying to drive a nail with a tack hammer. You can do it, but it’s not that efficient.
DT and WF lines are generally the same in the front taper and belly, so DTs still work great for close-in dry-fly fishing, and they can shoot to reasonable distances. But they’re not the kind of line you’d want to use to pound the bank with streamers out of drift boat or to make really long accurate casts to feeding fish; they don’t shoot as well because of the fatter diameter in the back of the line. However, they are great for controlling a lot of line out of a drift boat when you are primarily nymphing, and DT’s make a great all-around line for a wading fisherman who fishes smaller and medium sized streams. Plus if you are pinched in this economy, when the line starts to get beat up, you can turn it around and have a “new” line, as the back and front of a DT line mirror each other.
Double Taper is still pretty popular for roll casting and smaller waters.
And Weight Forward has all the different specialty tapers like Carp, Tarpon, Bass, etc. Long Belly, Windcutter...and much more.
Not an easy choice for sure.
I do prefer WF and for floating line I prefer the GPX or 1/2 line size bigger.
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A traditional weight-forward line that does not have an elongated belly and rear taper designed specifically for mending and nymphing tends to transition quite quickly to a smaller-diameter running line. In situations where you want to get a long drift by feeding line downstream as your indicator drifts in the current—or just by making a longer cast, let’s say 50 feet—and then being able to mend from the tip of your rod all the way to the indicator, a DT is great. The reason for this is that the diameter and mass of the line stays fairly constant when you get farther into the line, whereas if have a WF line and you have a lot of line out, you are trying to use the fine-diameter running line (which has way less mass) to move the belly and the head—like trying to drive a nail with a tack hammer. You can do it, but it’s not that efficient.
DT and WF lines are generally the same in the front taper and belly, so DTs still work great for close-in dry-fly fishing, and they can shoot to reasonable distances. But they’re not the kind of line you’d want to use to pound the bank with streamers out of drift boat or to make really long accurate casts to feeding fish; they don’t shoot as well because of the fatter diameter in the back of the line. However, they are great for controlling a lot of line out of a drift boat when you are primarily nymphing, and DT’s make a great all-around line for a wading fisherman who fishes smaller and medium sized streams. Plus if you are pinched in this economy, when the line starts to get beat up, you can turn it around and have a “new” line, as the back and front of a DT line mirror each other.
Double Taper is still pretty popular for roll casting and smaller waters.
And Weight Forward has all the different specialty tapers like Carp, Tarpon, Bass, etc. Long Belly, Windcutter...and much more.
Not an easy choice for sure.
I do prefer WF and for floating line I prefer the GPX or 1/2 line size bigger.
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