Converting from spinning to fly fishing

[Kingstonian]

Hi all. *Thanks for this forum. *As a guy who grew up fishing for bass and crappie, and chasing trout with artificials on spinning gear, I am trying to shorten my learning curve on fly-fishing for trout without being well-networked into any experienced fly fishermen.

A couple of questions for anyone knowledgeable... *

(1) What is the advantage to lower weight fly rods? *I use a 6 wt, mainly because that is what I have, but I see a lot of references to 4 wts. *Does distance get compromised with the lighter weights? *(I fish the Clinch a lot, and distance matters).

(2) Line taper: *I learned to use a WF/bug taper to throw popping bugs and wonder what the advantages are to a DT. *Is it just more finessee is how the fly lands? *Seems like that wouldn't matter with, say, nymphs.

(3) Tandem flys: * What kind of knot/rigging is used to do this? *Are both flys on the same piece of line (I assume so)? *If so, what kind of knot is used on the lead fly without risking a breakoff should the trailing fly be hit?

I appreciate anyone who takes to time to respond, and appreciate LRO for providing this forum. *

[Bob Page]

Howdy- i use a 3-4wt. rod on small streams. Its a shorter rod ( 6'6") for use in tight areas. Weight forward is easier to cast. When using flies in tandem I tie on the dry normally, then I tie tippet material to the hook of the dry to attach the dropper. -Bob Page

[budman]

A six weight rod will suit you just fine on the clinch, but on freestone streams I use a 2,3, & 4 wt. with my preference being a 3. On the smaller streams it is esier to mend & control your line with a longer rod though. On the smallest of streams you can use a longer rod for dabbling your line- kinda like fishing with an old cane pole. This is not to say your 6 wt wont work on streams it is just my experience that it's a lot more fun catching smaller fish on a smaller wt rod ( I do also own a 6 wt). As far as WF vs DT lines the advantage of a WF is that it is easier to cast, with the advantages of DT being that it has a longer life becasue when one side wears out you can respool it to use the other end that had been attached to the backing. As for using a dropper I do the same that Bob mentioned . In selecting a dry I try to use a big (12 or 14) bushy dry to also double as a strike indicator. The distance of tippet material used from the dry to the nymph should be around 1 1/2 the depth of the water you will be fishing. Hope this helps & best of luck to ya'

[Kingstonian]

Thanks to you both. It's tough being a newbie at 50, and I have a lot to learn.