What is a Fly Line?

A fly line is a specific type of fishing line that is used in fly fishing. A fly line is used to supply a weight necessary to cast an artificial fly with a fly rod.

Many years ago a fly line would have been constructed from woven horse hair, this then evolved and a fly line would have been made from woven silk fibres. Today synthetic materials have replaced natural materials so a fly line would be constructed of an outside synthetic layer.

The most common type of fly line you can purchase is around 90ft long but there are longer fly lines available should you need them and a fly line is always described by three characteristics - Taper, Weight and Buoyancy.

Taper, when talking about a fly line describes the change in cross-sectional diameter of a fly line from one end to another. When it comes to the taper of a fly line it can be one of four options: -

A weight forward taper means the cross-sectional diameter of the fly line changes from smaller to larger to small again within the front 30 ft of the fly line. Weight forward taper lines have only one end to which the leader is attached.

A double taper means the cross-sectional diameter changes from smaller to larger to smaller symmetrically along the entire length of the fly line.

A level means the cross-sectional diameter is identical along the entire length of the fly line.

Shooting heads and tips are level or tapered sections of fly line designed for exceptionally long distance casting.

Weight, when referring to a fly line the actual weight in grains of the first 30 ft of the fly line and it is worth noting that fly line weights vary from 1 weight to 15 weight using standards established by the American Fishing Tackle Manufacturers Association.

Buoyancy, when talking about a fly line refers to the buoyancy characteristic that describe how the fly line will behave on the water after being cast. These characteristics are; floating, sink tip and sinking.

A floating fly line, as the name suggests is designed to float on the surface of the water. A sink tip fly line is designed so that some length of the tip section of the fly line sinks while the remainder of the fly line floats and a sinking fly line is designed to sink along the entire length of fly line.