Once the fly assortment has been chosen, the next logical progression should be the line that will be used to catch the fish. The major difference between fly fishing, spinning and plug casting, is that with the last two types of tackle, the lure is used as a weight that drags the line from the reel to the target point of fishing. Flies are almost weightless, so you will need something to haul the line to the target area. That weight is the fly line, which can be linked to an unrolling sinker. Just before the stop of the back cast and the forward cast, the line is straight. On the stop the line begins unrolling, transporting the fly to the target area.
There are four basic types of fly lines: Level taper, double taper, weight forward and shooting taper. Now, within these four tapers there are many variations. Some companies produce several hundred of fly lines. The good thing however, is that once you decide what type of fishing you will be doing, you’ll be using only a specific type of line.
Lines are given numbers from 1-15, and the most commonly used lines are numbered 3-12 in weight. As a rule the first 30 feet of a line is weighted and this line must be matched to the rod for optimum casting. Since most anglers have a variety of different outfits, each outfit is then matched to a different line to match each rod.
As a rule, most manufacturers will have a label attached to each reel, which will usually indicate the lines’ weight or number.
