Niangua Fly Fisher Question

[podum]

All good stuff.  I miss about half of my takes on swinging flies.  Doesn't matter if its a leech or a #16 soft hackle.  I always believed it was because of the tension in the line.  When fish hit and turn, I believed they pulled the fly out of their mouth and the lack of slack provided no margin for the fish to hold on to the fly.  The "use heavier tippet theory" destroys that thought.  I'll give it shot.

I'd love to fish with you Wrench.  Drop a PM

[fishinwrench]

4 hours ago, tjm said:

 

I'd have to see an experiment showing that mono has any stretch at all when the only resistance is water. It should be easy in a pond or pool to take a 15-20' tippet and tie on a #2 streamer, then stretch the tippet away from the fly until straight, let it all rest a moment then jerk the tippet end a measured distance to a stop and measure how far the fly moved, the difference being the stretch. It could be done with a dead fish or a pork chop on the fly to see if the mono stretches with an average  hook set. Have to start the measured pull with zero slack though.

 We did hook penetration experiments using corrugated cardboard, and sheets of craft foam back during my bass club days.  Line stretch was more of a factor than rod action.     You can snap a heavy jig hook barb through heavy cardboard with a med-light action rod fairly easily....as long as the line is heavy enough.    

At that time nobody used braid, and flouro had just begun to enter the scene, so we only had mono to tinker with. 

[tjm]

In that instance you had substantial resistance in  the cardboard, in trout test weights you could likely break the tippet materials jerking them into cardboard.  But did you actually measure how far the line moved at each end? or did you just assume stretch? I've done dozens of internet searches and I have not found a single instance of a stretch test that showed anything except % of stretch when the line failed, nothing showing how much tension is required to initiate stretch. If it takes for example a 10# pull to create 1% stretch in 6# test line, that line will have zero stretch when pulled against water or even a 2# trout.

All the fluorocarbon I've seen was monofilament.  I only use nylon, but for discussion either is mono and there not enough difference in how they work for it to matter. Fluoro has the advantage of lasting thousands or years in the environment as scrap or trash where the nylon only lasts a hundred years or so, but I won't live long enough for that to matter.   

[fishinwrench]

56 minutes ago, tjm said:

In that instance you had substantial resistance in  the cardboard, in trout test weights you could likely break the tippet materials jerking them into cardboard.

You're not taking the hook point into consideration.    Huge difference between driving a 3/8oz. Bass jig hook to the barb......and a #12-14 fine wire fly hook.