DIY Shooting Heads

[clydebuilt]

Hello folks,

I have been perusing the forum and found some great advice on the construction and designs of home made shooting heads.

I am going to experiment with the construction of some of my own and would appreciate your input on a few pointers for me.

I am going to go down the chopped DT route to start with.(May try chopping a WF behind the head at a later stage)

I've made up various SH's for s/water and big lure work in the past by going up 2 weights of the rod rating to ensure they load ok ,but this has been for single handers only, should I apply the same for D/handers?

I was thinking of using 3' for every 1' of the rod as a rough formula, does this seem reasonable?

Primarily my heads are going to be Intermediate and Medium sink, so as far as weight goes, I'm thinking about chopping #12 lines? any thoughts.

I will probably buy some of the cheapo lines from Mullarkeys to get started and have a tinker with and I will leave out adding Poly tips etc until im happy with the basics.

So to cut a very long story short ,

I'm using a Bruce & Walker Norway 16' 9/10

What length should I cut the heads to before fine tuning? 48' ?

Would #12 heads be sufficient for weights?

As for running line, I'm thinking Guideline Slick or 50lb braided mono, any other recommendations?

Look forward to your replies &/or experiences.

Thanks

Clydebuilt

[sagecaster]

As a guide to length, you need to establish whether you tend to overhead or Spey cast and how much handling you are prepared to put up with.

I would stay away from the WF lines, pick a DT and chop off the taper at one end, this will typically give you about 22m line length. Test from here and chop back to suit.

I use amnesia mono, cheap goes like a bullet, but devil to hold on to!

#13 would be better if you can get your hands on one.

[clydebuilt]

Sagecaster,

I will be primarily speycasting with the SH set up as there's not enough room behind me on the waters I intend to fish with them.

I don't mind handling running line within reason, normally 4 or 5 big loops hanging of each finger will be my tolerable limit but I'm not sure about the mono.

I did use the older Flat beam for my s/hander SH's in the past then changed over to the polyshoot type running line which was slightly more pleasant to handle throughout the day.
I also use a line tray for S/water but this won't be utilised when im on the river and deep wading.

I have read elsewhere about using light DT lines for running line?

I might look inot this further as long as the breaking strains are up to the job

Thanks for your ideas

Clydebuilt

[rpsalmon]

You can design whatever you like, and boy I have made some silly lines! I'll give you the benefit of some practical advice over 20 + years of making my own lines.

Only use PVC lines, don't use the Airflo type, because when you take a needle to the PVC it has a bit of flexibility and give . I found the best source for my stocks of line were Norris's, McHardy's and....phoning around the tackle shop owners you know and asking them if they has any bits of line they didn't want in order that you could experiment...asked them to keep them aside and I'd pick them up in a week or two. The last source was astonishing and I ended up with a 4x4 ft box full of bits of free line! I didn't ask how the shops came to have to many bits...but I gather some people take their reels along to a shop and ask them to put the new fly line on and take the old off! If you know someone who tests fly lines for a company then you could ask them, I used to be sent experimental lines by two companies and they hardly ever wanted them back. One of these was a continuously tapered line from an aftm 3 at one end to aftm 12 at the other, useless to cast with but great for cutting up!

You need calipers, Maplins Electronic sell good ones for £15. Dental floss is useful to connect pieces of line, but you can use other products, I just stuck to it because I bought Boots brand and it worked, and it never ran out! Everyone seems to have their favourite glues, some people swear by UHU but I keep on going back to Wader repair "Storm xxx" or "Aqua xxx", I also use light dabs of super glue applied with the end of a needle-never a lot! I tried a PVC fly line restorer about 15 years ago but found it to be rubbish, perhaps you could see whether it has changed!

You will need to get practicing at joining pieces of fly line neatly, this isn't as easy as it sounds and will probably be your major obstacle. I remove as of the coating as is practical from the dental floss and use the needle to go through each end of line, making sure the point of the needle goes in and out of the string core, eventually I got it to the stage where I was confident with a two inch insertion but initially used four inches (it looked terrible but I was just starting out!). Once you have each end of the floss inserted in a fly line, and move the fly lines so that they are five inches apart, you put some wader repair on the four inch center part of the floss connecting the two pieces of fly line and wait two minutes to let it "soak in". Then, keeping the floss straight, you slowly move the fly lines together and watch as much of the wager repair glue is squeezed out and lost; no matter because you just wanted the floss covered in wader glue, and now that should be inside each end of the fly lines. Clean off the excess but be careful, the wader glue doesn't dry for a long time (10 hours?).

Now for the super glue, a little bit goes at each end of the floss but inside the fly line and has to be done within 10 mins of the previous wader glue operation. The way to do this is to pull one end of the floss out of the fly line by 10mm (this will cause the fly line to scrunch up but don't worry as it won;t be like this for long), before doing this you need to secure the other the end the floss or you may pull it out of position, and put a small amount of super glue on the 10mm section of floss. Releasing the tension on the floss will allow it to go back through the needle hole and into the fly line...where the super glue will dry. Wipe off the excess super glue immediately! (Told you only to put a small amount of super glue on it!)
Repeat the super glue process at the other end of the floss. Don't cut off the ends of floss showing, in the event that the join doesn't work you can pull out the floss and not have to repeat all processes again.

[clydebuilt]

Well rpsalmon,

Firstly, thanks for taking your time for a detailed reply, its always great to have an alternative opinion and share others experience.

I for one cut square the line to be joined, push into a lenght of braided mono, repeat at the other end, drop of glue on the join, whip centre and outers, cover the joint and braid with Aquasure & use a hair dryer to gently heat it before it sets ensuring it fully penetrates the braid and covers the joint.

Granted, its not the prettiest but reasonably durable and flexible for what it was intended.

I don't know how confident I'd be with a larger salmon on though.

I will no doubt be looking at different heads ie possible sink tips etc so your method above will get a shot too. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I have plenty scrap bits of line kicking about and im sure theres a spare roll or 2 of floss in the bathroon cabinet

Thanks again

Clydebuilt