Fire Line/Fire Wire for Stingers...

[Pat Jenkins]

So I spent some time at the FFS this past weekend watching & talking with Todd Scharff from BC, he ties his stinger type patterns with "fire line" or "fire wire" for the trailer hook? The material is a little stiffer than mono, seemed to be coated like electrical wire - but for the life of me I can't remember what it is called.

Has anyone had any experience with this stuff or anything similar?

[Ed D]

It's called fireline and Berkely manufactures it. I think it is pretty much the preferred material for intruderish type patterns.
Works pretty well.

[Charlie Erdman]

Ed D said it right. It is good stuff and you can tie some dope patters with it.

Charlie

[Pat Jenkins]

Thanks for clarifying. In my eagerness to get tying some of these patterns I ended up buying some "toothy critter" type material. It worked but certainly is a bit more rigid than I'd like.

[gigharborflyfisher]

That Berkley fire line is awesome, I have been experimenting with it a bit for salt water patterns and I am very impressed so far.

[Wayne Jordan]

I agree, it's great stuff to tie with!

[Bruce Davidson]

For the first time, I tied up a few dozen big flies with stingers using fireline. I was told to use 30#, but ended up only finding 20#, and was too lazy to keep looking. I've yet to use any yet. Heading to the OP in a couple of weeks to give them a swim. Any advice/wisdom as to whether 20# is appropriate?

[bconrad]

20 pound FireLine should work as well as 30...It's going to be significantly stronger than any mono tippet of 15 pounds or less.

I've used 50 and 80 pound FireLine for creating stingers on Intruders, but I don't like the fact that after you fish it a little, the FireLine gets really flexible, and the stinger hook hangs down below the fly. Keep in mind that this happens partly because I leave my trailer loop long enough to swap the stinger hook. I know it shouldn't really matter if you're swinging the fly under tension, but it still irritates me!

Because of this, I've been tying my Intruders on tubes, but I would still like to try using a shank and a stinger. I think my next try will be to use 20-25 pound Maxima, so I can keep the trailer long enough to swap hooks, while still retaining enough stiffness to keep the hook up near the body of the fly.

I think the original Intruder addressed this issue by utilizing a small mono loop tied in near the back of the fly. You would then run the tippet through the shank eye, through the mono loop, and then through a thin section of junction tubing to the stinger hook. I'm sure this works fine, but it's a little too much work for me to put into a fly that I'm going to lose anyways.

[speyfisher]

Todd was using 80# Berkley FireLine at the FFS which he said was no longer being made. His responce as to why 80# was that the lighter stuff would get kind of limp after a while.

[Bruce Davidson]

Thanks for the feedback guys. And if the 20# happens to not work out, I have a convenient excuse to tie more. :)
Bruce

[Bruce Davidson]

Thought I'd give you a report of how the 20# fireline worked for me on this week's OP trip:
It actually worked fine as far as the concern of foul hooking went. I never found the stinger to get wrapped around the other materials. I did have a couple of times when stuck on a rock the fireline broke, but 90% of the time it did not. If I had to do it over again, I'd tie on 30 or 40# line, but things went better than expected. I'll need another excuse to tie more flies. :)

[freezerburn]

I started off using 20# Fireline because it was readily available. For whatever reason, 30# was difficult to get a hold of until just recently in my local area (maybe someone bought the entire stock). I found that if you double up the 20# Fireline the stinger hook stays back and doesn't get limp as fast. I don't swap my hooks out so I try and make the trailer as short as possible. If I need to swap out hooks I will us a tube fly instead. Hope this helps.