Scandinavian Shooting Heads

[peter-s-c]

As promised, here's a link to document that explains the benefits and the types of Scandinavian Shooting head systems available.

http://home.mountaincable.net/~pcharles/scando-2.html

[into_my_backing]

Peter,
Excellent article! Thanks for sharing your hard-earned knowledge and experience. Best summary, I've encountered on the merits of the Scando system and philosophy.

The biggest problem I have had with the scando system is figuring out what kind of terminal tip, whether it be straight mono or a sinking polyleader is best suited for a particular head. I never have much problem casting any of heads that I have tried, but depending on what I have attached to the end of it, I've encountered various problems with how and where the terminal piece of line turnsovers and is placed in the water. I am currently a believer that to the get the best performance out of these heads, one needs to do quite a bit experimenting with terminal tips and each head seems to like something a bit different. This is the most difficulting part of fine-tuning a head/line in my opinion.

[Redneck Scholar]

Thank you, Peter, for such a thorough explanation. That clarifies why you were suggesting I try heads short and tight on my trout-spey instead of Skagit. Have you used any of the Guideline heads on a trout-spey?

Red'

[peter-s-c]

into_my_backing

Yes, I've gone through the terminal tackle blues as well. Now I just simplify matters using only mono or FC leaders with the appropriate sink rate head, unless a Poly is essential. Then I stick to the 5' versions only, using the Trout size on my 7/8, the Salmon on the 8/9, and Saltwater on the 9/10, aligning the Poly weights to the head. When I use a five footer, I subtract that length from the leader so that my anchor point remains consistent. As I mentioned in a previous post, I use 15' to 20' FC or mono for floaters, around 15' FC for intermediates, 8' to 12' FC for sinkers and sinktips, length dependent on conditions and fly used.


Red

My Le Cie 7/8 is virtually a trout Spey considering that in conventional lines, it takes a WC 5/6 and I use five PT heads on it: F/I, Hover, S1/2, S2/3, and S3/4. Guideline 8/9 PT heads cut down to around 30' to 32' will come in at just over 300 grains and should be perfect for a trout Spey.

[Long Shank]

Nice write up Peter will have to study it some more, I have also been using the Scandi heads for a couple of years now. After reading your article I see little need to try Skagit heads as the Scandi seem to do the job for me and appears what you have concluded also.

BTW, what happened to the rest of your site, you know all that good streamer patterns, etc.



LS

[peter-s-c]

The Steamer Page has been retired. It was getting pretty dated and I didn't have the enthusiasm to re-do it.

I've been threatening to do a GL site for a couple of years now and I've finally got off my butt with it. I'm planning to have a pretty large site with a permanent domain name and space, featuring hard data measurements of presentations, photos, illustrations, and video. It'll be about 70% Scandic, 25% or so long belly and less than 5% Skagit. Since I don't fish Skagit any more, I thought it inappropriate for me to feature it on the site.

So far I have the basic HTML structure finished, about 70% of the text, 25% of the photos, 0% of the data, 0% of the illustrations and 0% of the video. Still lots of work to do -- figure it'll be finished about this time next year. In the meantime, I'll occasionally add to this small page over the next few months, then roll it into the big one.

[peter-s-c]

It's amazing how much stuff you get done when Da Boss is away and you're alone in the house. Not only are all of the honeydos and my stuff done, but the update I figured I'd slip in next month, got done too.

So if you want, have a second look as I've added some extra sections and re-orged it a bit for better navigation.

[manchu67]

This is some high speed stuff! Thanks!

[peter-s-c]

Thanks.

Added a "retailers" and an "other brands" section -- that's it for now.

Cheers

[fisherking]

I just copied and pasted the write up on Scandanavian shooting heads and wow . Twelve pages worth of text! Peter-S-C thanks for all the information and research that you put into this.

[Long Shank]

The Steamer Page has been retired. It was getting pretty dated and I didn't have the enthusiasm to re-do it.

I've been threatening to do a GL site for a couple of years now and I've finally got off my butt with it. I'm planning to have a pretty large site with a permanent domain name and space, featuring hard data measurements of presentations, photos, illustrations, and video. It'll be about 70% Scandic, 25% or so long belly and less than 5% Skagit. Since I don't fish Skagit any more, I thought it inappropriate for me to feature it on the site.

So far I have the basic HTML structure finished, about 70% of the text, 25% of the photos, 0% of the data, 0% of the illustrations and 0% of the video. Still lots of work to do -- figure it'll be finished about this time next year. In the meantime, I'll occasionally add to this small page over the next few months, then roll it into the big one.

Cool, good stuff I will be checking it out periodically, may even convince me to get back heavy into the spey stuff again, still into it but also doing traditional single hander stuff also, oh then theres golf and musky fishing which with work has cut into my spey time the last two years.



LS

[peter-s-c]

I've added some linked photos to deal with describing tactical loops and stuff plus it's been cleaned up a bit.

http://home.mountaincable.net/~pcharles/scando-2.html

[Slint]

Peter:

With the full sinking heads, how are you determining which poly leader to use, as far as making sure you are in the sink rate range.

i.e.--With the guideline DDC, it is graduated in sink from the a$$ end intermediate, down to a faster tip. With the poly leader, I imagine we need to make sure that it is sinking faster yet than the tip of the shooting head, to make sure there isn't a belly. Is this simply a matter of experimenting, or do you have any advice as a guideline? (No pun intended.)

Also, when using the full sinking heads, why is a poly leader rather than a long mono leader preferred? Is it because of turn over, or continued sink rates?

Thanks for all your work on this.

Slint

[peter-s-c]

When it comes to the DDC line, I would never use Polys as I don't see where they add any value. You get all the droop necessary by hanging an S4/5 tip off of the intermediate belly. The S4/5 tip has the same sink rate as the fastest sinking Poly. I'd use Polys only on the standard PT sinking heads, never on the DDC. I'd also be concernerd about the DDC turnover with a Poly as those tips are thinner than standard PT heads at the tip.

As far as Poly versus PT tip sink rates, one can go by published rates. Assume that the fastest sinking Airflo Poly is a Type 5, while the "Fast Sink" is a Type 3. So if I were to use a regular PT S1/2, I could use anything from a Type 3 to Type 5 Poly. If using a PT S2/3, then only Type 4 and Type 5 will help, as we always want a Poly that sinks faster than the end of the PT head. That said, I'd do sink rate tests on the Polys to see if they actually measure up to published rates. The fly should always sink faster than the Poly.

Polys help to drag the tip of a regular PT sinker down that little bit farther so they'd be useful in a boulder garden where I'd droop a Type 5 off of an S1/2 or Hover to get around the rocks. But if we're talking simple currents in your standard pool, then there's no compelling reason to use them. I use Polys on an exception basis only, rather than as a rule. These days I normally only fish long FC leaders.

If I was using an S1/2 with a 12' FC leader and decided to add a 5' Poly, my FC leader would be cut back to 7' so that the anchor point and total length remained consistent.

I haven't tested this yet, but I have a sneaky suspicion that a skiny, long FC leader + fast sink rate fly will get down just as far, or almost as far, as a Poly + shorter FC leader and the same fly, in most currents.

[Slint]

Thanks. That helps a ton.

cheers,

Slint