I'll be fishing small/medium sized stillwaters this winter the deepest I fish is about 12' in the centre, I suppose the rest average about 8' in depth. Would you recommend using an intermediate sinking or full on sinking line to fish the bottom with lures/bloodworms - or should I stick to my floating line with a 12' leader?

And just to be gormless what does the inches per second rating refer to on a sinking line? Is it the speed at which the tip sinks or does the whole line do an 'Achtung Dive, Dive Dive' thing and disappear before your very eyes?

I await your collective wisdom

Hi thre,
the ips is the inches per second your sinking line will sink ie i have a di7 sinking line which will mean the whole line will sink 7 inches per second and if i were you i would go for the intermediate line

Thanks Mike,

You've confirmed what I thought, and thanks for explaining the ratings a Di7 must float like a housebrick, I'd probably herniate myself getting it back up

Gareth
Apologies if you know this stuff already.

If you use a fast sinking line in shallow water, you are going to catch the bottom unless you retrieve very fast to keep the flies up in the water. As a rule of thumb, the colder the water gets the less willing the fish are to chase fast moving lures.
Fish don't look down, so if the fish are high in the water, a sinking line may take the fly below them.
A sinking line is useful in shallow water (or deep for that matter) if you want to fish a booby on a short leader, twitched back along the bottom (deadly on it's day)
A sinking line is a bit more difficult to cast with for a beginner than a floating line - in terms of drawing it out of the water.

You can get a sort of line extension, called a polyleader which you can attach to a floating line. You can get them in intermediate and sinking. They act a bit differently from a full intermediate or sinking line but are a cheap substitute. Some people don't like them.

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Thanks Bill, no I didn't know any of the above, I only started in March and have only just about become competent casting a floating line, so I don't want to complicate things, the idea of a sinking extension tip to my current line sounds like a good idea, would one of those have the same affect as a midge tip, or is that something completely different? I'm only asking that because the Pirate did have some sink tip lines on here at an excellent price.

Adding a sinking polyleader dose give the effect of a midge tip line.
I bought a Di7 under advice of several lads that fish the same water i fish, and i can still remember the first attempt of a cast with a Di7 , i nearly hooked my self , felt my casting going completely wrong and i started to get a bit annoyed with my self lol.
i eventually got the hang of casting a Di7 within the same day , but i bought a 5ft intermediate clear polyleader to add to my snowbee floating line and WOW i can feel the rod loading and the line shoots out ( for me anyway ) and i found i can cast further and presentation of the flies or fly is also better.

and if your using a polyleader but still want it to sink faster just simply add a weighted fly and it will get down that bit quicker.

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Get the slowest sinking line available (Neutral Density). It will get your below the surface drift and you can control the speed of retrieve, not the wind.
One other factor is sub surface drift. Its often going in the opposite direction to the surface cross wind so if you fish a floater your flies are effectively travelling twice as fast, which ain't good in cold conditions.

John H

With only 12' of water at the deepest I don't think you need anything other than a floating and intermediate for 90% of your fishing. There may be very few occasions where a booby on a fast sinker would work better than other methods in very cold weather (a method I've never done well with) but I would save my cash and spend it on a few more days on the water, you'll probably catch more fish that way anyway

That's spot on advice from mot for the small stillwaters I have fished in the South of England. I don't know exactly where Gareth is based or what waters he'll be fishing, but if they are like Avon Spings, Chalk Springs or similar then for 90% of the "90% of the time" the floater with a weighted fly will be all you need. Trout in this sort of fishery seem to hold and feed higher in the water column than they do in reservoirs or gravel pit fisheries in winter.

When I used to fish Langford, a gravel pit fishery, I did find enough use for a quick sinking line and booby rig in winter to make it worth carrying one. Sometimes the fish would ignore a stickfly or montana fished deep and slow off the floating line, but would be very receptive to a booby fished just off the deck.

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JH based near Southampton

Thanks for all the advice, I'm now pricing up sinking polyleaders vs an intermediate, hopefully I'll avoid hooking my own head, but knowing me my next post might read 'OUCH, how do I get a wooly ****** out of my skull'