How To Tell Different Weighted Flies Apart

[bcfish]

When I tie something like a pheasant tail nymph I will sometimes tie it with a weighted underbody, single or double layer. I may not put any weight in it at all. How do you mark these or tell them apart without taking away from the apearance of the fly. I just started tying not to long ago, but I do find it helpful to have some heavier or lighter of the same pattern at any given situation. So please tell me what you think.

[Danoinark]

One way, and what I do is change the thread color of the head slightly. For a weighted bug you could use brown instead of black, orange instead of red, etc. The small difference in hue is not noticeable and the fish don't care anyway.

Dano

[timsfly]

I use different color of threads to tell my flies apart.

black for unweighted

brown for 5-10 wraps of lead

yellow for 10+

and red for bead + lead

I use .015 for most of my small flies

and .020 for my small buggers and .025 and

larger for #8 sized flies and bigger.

I still use a bit of .030 sometimes, and I use a coffee

brown when I use it on a big fly.

[outdoorman]

use different color thread like red for weighted and black for unweighted

[bcfish]

Thanks for the info. I figured on doing that but I thought maybe there would be some other options. Another question I had was when I fish something that I want to get down quick I will use a BB sized split shot. I have a hard time with strike indicators sinking. Then when I switch to a larger indicator I cant cast with all that mess without making a huge splash. I might as well throw rocks at the fish.

[duckydoty]

You could also organize them in the fly box, weighted on one side and non weighted on the other.

[Danoinark]

Thanks for the info. I figured on doing that but I thought maybe there would be some other options. Another question I had was when I fish something that I want to get down quick I will use a BB sized split shot. I have a hard time with strike indicators sinking. Then when I switch to a larger indicator I cant cast with all that mess without making a huge splash. I might as well throw rocks at the fish.

Tie them with Tungsten bead heads. Tungsten is heavier than lead and will get your fly down very fast.

Dano

[flyfshn]

Great question! Have been tying for a couple of years and had the same question, but never did anything about it!

[soggyfeet]

On your indicator problem you could do a different things. 1 is what Dano suggested 2 use smaller weight fly shops sell weights that are barely big enough to go around 5x tippet(well maybe not that small) 3 is change the style of indicator I dont know what kind you are useing but i almost always use the football shoped indicators and dont have the big splash problem. night time is a different story but i cant see the splash so i dont worry about it too much

[Gavin]

I tie em on my leader and see how fast they sink..