I have been given some old dt lines and wondered if I could make a serviceable shooting head for a 6 weight rod out of them?

The one I'm most interested in is an 11 wt lead core, about 15 foot of it might make a decent shooting head lead core for my 10ft 6wt I use most of the time?

In fact lets just ask the question is it even feasible to cast a shooting head with a 6wt?

__________________

Ha Ha..A good line would be 11yards of 7# or 10yards of 8#.You might get away with about 15' of 11# but it's not really practical.
If you need info on how to make up a shooting head.then I have some good info and can PM it to you.

Jim

__________________
The Fishermans Friend is the Flirty Fly,Fickle Food for Fleeting Fish.

I took the lines out this evening and stretched them down the drive and the coils in them were like slinkies. The coating on the lines had also perished and was starting to separate from the core and crack quite badly as well.

Took one look and chucked them into the neighbours bin - it was closer than ours

Think its back to the drawing board for this one

__________________

It's perfectly possible to make a really good shooting head set-up for a #6. An ultra short, high density head (15 feet) is going to be really nasty though.

What does really nasty mean?

Also what is a light shooting head like a 6wt going to be like for presentation, obviously it won't be much use for dry flies?

__________________

Hi RC,

Really short shooting heads don't work. During a fly cast you need to have an aerodynamic loop to pull out the shooting line. As soon as this loop straightens out you lose the aerodynamic stability and the cast dumps to the ground - usually in a heap if the line was still traveling at speed (flying spaghetti as distance casters call it). With a 15ft head the loop is going to propagate to the end of the flyline way before you want it to land, thus you'll have a straight fly-line trying to travel through the air. I'd cast a WF#6 further than a high density 15ft head for this reason (and get better presentation). Perhaps you should try it just for fun.