Tony was gracious enough to comment on my recent Blog asking about clear floating lines for bonefish when casting to “highly educated” fish. My answer is just a little long to be a comment reply, so here it is in the form of a Blog. This is my opinion only, worth the price of the paper it is printed on. I don’t need to mention brand names, but to the best of my knowledge I have fished all of the clear floating saltwater lines for bonefish. They do one thing well and two things not so well. First they definitely help to not spook fish. They work as advertised in that department. So a definite plus. But…………. I find they tangle all of the time (they have a lot of memory) so not great for the wading angler and when I cast, I can’t tell where my fly lands. The second problem is most likely old age, so maybe not the fly lines fault. But there is no coloured line to follow out to the fish. My style of fishing requires accuracy, a clear line works best for me when accuracy is not such an issue, i.e blind casting or deeper water fishing (off a boat) where you aren’t required to hit such a small target. So if a full clear floating line is not “exactly” the answer, what do I do? My answer is to use a floating saltwater line with a “ghost” or clear tip. I like them a lot for spooky fish. They are particularly useful for those of us who cannot cast eighteen foot leaders. A 10 -12 foot ghost tip plus eleven feet of leader is over twenty feet of clear line. With the added benefit of the ghost tip casting nearly as well as a normal floating line. Presto, you can now cast the equivalent of a twenty foot clear leader and your eye can follow a normal fly line out to the point the clear tip starts. Probably evident but the clear tip absolutely needs to float. An intermediate clear line just doesn’t work on the really skinny water we fish. These lines are commercially available as saltwater clear tip floating lines. I have also “built” a clear head that I add to my normal bonefish line by cutting off ten feet of a clear floating line I had bought (didn’t cast worth a crap), put a loop on each end and it works really well. That gives me ten feet of clear tip plus an eleven foot leader. For those of you who can cast a really long leader, you are better off. The ghost tip does not land as softly as a constructed eighteen foot leader. Thanks Tony, hope this helps.
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