I'd apologize for my delay in posting this, but it would be disingenuine. I've had a busy couple of weeks with lots of moving parts and it feels like the walls are closing in on me. The time to finish little odds and ends is at a premium now as my seasons are about to begin. This article is an essential piece to the spey fishing article puzzle.

Sink tips can be a tricky and confusing one. As with all these pieces, I'll add my disclaimer. This article contains opinions formed from what has worked for my guests and me over time.

Before I send your brain into a tailspin, I'll say this. If you had a floating tip, light, medium and heavy sink tip that cast well with your outfit, you'd be ready for 90% of all fishing situations. It only needs to be that complicated. Being the advanced beings that we are, we will not stop there. We need to have every system and variation known to humanity and carry Wallets brimming with tips of different lengths, manufacturers, densities and colours. I see it ALL THE TIME. Ziploc bags filled with hundreds of dollars in tips of which people don't even know what they have or what they are, nevermind when, where or how to use them.

So, in review, If you had a floating, light, medium and heavy sink tip that you cast well with your outfit, you'll be prepared for 90% of all fishing situations.

Another piece of advice I’d give you is that if you are running multiple rods. It's good to have those same tips in duplicate. I say this because if you start a run with your heavy tip on and find it's too much and you are hanging up, it's time to change the tip. What happens if your medium tip is on the other rod? Most times, you won't change tips and you'll just figure it out, sometimes compromising how you should fish the run. Say your other rod is back in the boat or on the bank up where you started. Now you have to get out of the river, potentially lose your spot where you stopped (and likely fished that area poorly), walk back up, change the tip, walk back down, waste time and attempt to find your rhythm again. If you are fishing the run with others, it also upsets the rhythm and flow of that program as well. If you're splitting the run with a partner and they follow you, they will catch up with you. If you follow them, it will take you longer to finish your portion of the piece and they'll be finished before you and waiting. It's not necessarily a big deal but also something to think about. Your lack of preparedness can affect another person's day.

Ok, so selecting a system. There are lots of them. I have experience with some and will outline them here.

The Type system (RIO)

This system has been around for ages and originated in the single-hand world. They made a line that had an interchangeable sink tips system. Replacement tips allowed you to change sink density with a loop to loop system. You buy the whole system of Line and sink tips that come in a wallet. Traditionally they were 15ft tips. They now offer 10ft ones as well. These tips transitioned into the spey world well and are widely popular. These are usually my recommendation. They are simple, easy to understand, well placarded, colour-coded, cast well and cover basic needs very well.

Now the simple part appears to be complicated.

Let's say you bought the whole offering for your 8wt. Floating, intermediate, type 3, type 6, and type 8. All these tips weight the same 109 grains. All these tips weigh the same, all these tips weigh the same. I repeat myself because all these tips weigh the same. What makes one sink more or less than the next is the density. I may make a line scientist cringe at the following description, but I'm attempting to relate it to the commoner and the naked eye. If you look at the type 3,6,8 you can see it. Type 3 is kinda fat. Type 6 is a little skinnier. Type 8 is thin thin, much like an overdressed fly compared to a sparse fly of the same weight. The sparse will sink faster. Type 8 is the sparse fly. Type 6 is the moderately dressed and type 3 the overdressed bulky fly. Now, I'm not sure how this translates to the intermediate and floating lines, but let's just leave it in the hands of the Rio specialists and trust that they got it right. The floating one will float and the intermediate will sink a little.

Contrary to one popular idea, your type 8 for an 8wt should sink at the same rate as type 8 for 10wt. There's a school of folks that use the different rod weights of the same tip as a tool to achieve different depths (ex: They feel 10wt type 8 sinks deeper than 8wt type 8.) Although this may be a thing to some degree, I think the differences would be negligible and all you would achieve is a potential mismatch of what works well on your rod.

The MOW system

My guess is that The MOW system is the most popular in my area. It's a great system with lots of options for lots of situations. If I had a beef with this system, it would be that there are too many options. I feel bad for the fly shops, which are somewhat expected to carry all or many of these SKUs. I think that some of the offerings are redundant (i.e.: 7.5ft floating and 2.5ft of whatever.) I'm not sure if I would ever use any of these. I like the 5ft/5ft tips and some of the 2.5 float/ 7.5 sink tips. These tips are well constructed, durable and pretty simple once you understand them.

The MOW system is based on the T system. T is for TUNGSTEN, so it comes in T-8, T-11, T-14, T-17, T-20, but what does that mean? T-8 weighs 8 Grains per foot. Measurements in grains are archaic, yes. Yes, I know the metric system would be much better, but here we are anyway.

So T-8 is 8 grains per foot, T-11 is 11 grains per foot etc. etc. The higher the #, the more "sinky" it is. This system is great because you can buy it in bulk at most fly shops and customize your lengths and save a few pesos as well. The MOW system has made it convenient by assembling wallets with all the tips you will require (much like the Type system) in a wallet, you will find a:

-10ft floater

-2.5 sink - 7.5 float

-5ft sink - 5ft float

-7.5ft sink - 2.5 float

-10ft full sink

I find the first two somewhat useless for me (opinions differ, of course)

That being said, if you owned one Skagit set up and this was to be your only set of tips, it's great. Do you want to try your hand at throwing some dries? But you don't want to commit to another head. Throw the floater on with a 9ft tapered leader and you are in the game. It's not going to throw beautifully like a Skandi or Rage, but it works. The 2.5 sink/ 7.5 floater will now take the place of an intermediate tip. For me, these are the best uses of these oddballs. If you were to purchase the kit that fits your rod and then cherry-picked through through others for the most popular ones, it would be a cheaper and less confusing way to go.

Now, say you have purchased the T14 Wallet. All these tips weigh the same. Yes, the floater is 14Grn per foot, just like the full sinking 10" of T14.

Taking a break after fishing the “heavy stuff” 15’ of T17 can wear a guy out. A longer 10-11 wt is a better tool for this application.

Something else of note. Suppose you plan on throwing T14 a lot. It would help if you were doing it on a 9wt or greater. If you have an 8 it can still be done, but you are pushing on its max. Suppose you have a T-17 Kit. It would help if you were throwing a 9wt or even a 10 or 11wt. This will be a bit of a struggle with your 8wt ( believe me, I learned the hard way.) This concept is better explained in the video below.

Now that I have spent 3 hours writing this, I found a Rio video where Simon Gawesworth explains all the same stuff here, yet better. It's 14mins but well worth the watch. Regardless I am going to finish what I set out to do and talk about two more options.

OPST tips. Very similar to the Rio Type system. They are sold in grain windows and should be matched to your rod and head accordingly. These tips are very well made and labelled. Instead of Type 3,6,8, they are labelled Riffle (light), Run (medium) and Bucket (heavy). I don't own these, but they are great tips from a great company and I am always happy when a client has a full menu of these. Another thing of note is the OPST tip wallets and head wallets are the best in the biz.

Airflo Poly Leaders, I don't use these alot and I wish I did. I think the number one reason that I don't is poor placarding. It sounds like a crazy reason, I know. I am not the most organized person when it comes to sink tips. If I change on the fly, it gets rolled up and stuffed back in the wallet. I can try to put them back in their packaging, but it just won't happen, I know myself. Maybe they have improved on this, but I know I have at least 3-4 of them shoved in different places, but they rarely see the water because I don't know what the hell they are. Another beef with this system is the name. Fast sink for a light tip, super fast for a medium? Extra super fast for the heavy. I dunno, light medium and heavy seems so much easier. They are a little more affordable (although they don't last as long as some other tips). They cast like a dream. They are fantastic on Rage, Skandi or some of the even longer heads. The placarding situation needs to sort for me to get fully on board.

Airflo flo tips. somewhat similar to a MOW tip without all the SKUs. They are of excellent quality, well placarded and one majorly big like for me is they make them in 12ft versions with 2ft of intermediate integrated into it( I don't know why I like 12fters so much better). These are also great options for some people. They haven't caught on quite as much as the MOW system, but I must say I like these tips a lot.

Well, that's enough for now. My Brain is sizzled. Apologies, as I lost some of my vigour on the last couple of segments. Ever since I saw Simon's video, I felt like I had the legs kicked out from under me. He did a great job explaining those systems. I could have easily just posted a link and achieved the same result. I never do things the easy way tho.

So after all this, let me repeat myself again one more time:

If you had a floating tip, light, medium and heavy sink tip that cast well with your outfit, you'd be ready for 90% of all fishing situations. It only needs to be that complicated.

How to Prepare for you Steelhead Trip Part Four "Sink Tips"