Presenting your fly at the depth where fish are holding is one of the most important factors in successful fishing.
Commando Tips are ideal for making swung fly presentations to steelhead and salmon. It's a fact that not every run calls for the fastest, heaviest sink tip. Riffles and shallower runs can be just as important as deep holes, especially in high water. In such conditions, a shallower, yet still level, sink is the way to go.
Commando Tips will make you a more complete angler by allowing you to choose, within a set grain weight, from between three different sink rates: Riffle, Run and Bucket, for shallow, medium and deep water, respectively.
These tips are 12 feet long to enhance water load and prevent blown anchors, and come with strong welded loops at both ends for easy rigging.
The rear ends come with color-coded line IDs to identify both grain weight and sink rate. 96 Grains are looped with Yellow, 132 grains with Light Blue, and 168 Grains are Tan.
Within those three grain weights are the three sink rates (Riffle, Run, and Bucket) for each weight. See the image below.
Those familiar with MOW tips will be able to choose from three different grain weights: 96 grain, 132 grain and 168 grain, (T8, T11 and T14 grains per foot) for use on 2 weight switch rods up to 9 weight two handers. You will notice that the designations are S2/3, S5/6, etc- meaning the back half of the line, for example for an S2/3, is a Type 2 (2 inches per second), and the front half is a Type 3 (3 inches per second). This produces a straighter sink to the fly and reduces the belly effect that occurs in level sink tips.
12 FOOT COMMANDO TIPS
Rounding out our sink tip selection is our original series of 12 Foot Commando Tips. These work best on rods from 10 to 14 feet. Like our 10 foot Commando Tips, these come in 8, 11 and 14 grains per foot, or 96, 132 and 168 grains total, with a Riffle, Run and Bucket option within each grain weight.
However, these tips are dual density—the back half of the tip sinks at one inch per second slower rate than the front half. This gives you a slightly more direct connection to the fish by reducing the belly effect in your line. This could potentially increase hookups.
- Our 96 grain Commando Tips work best with rods from about a 4-weight switch to a 6-weight spey, or about a 225 grain to a 300 grain Commando Head. The 96 Grain Riffle tip is an S2/3, the Run is an S3/4 and the Bucket is an S5/6.
- Our 132 grain tips work best for rods from about a 6-weight spey to an 8-weight switch, or about a 325 to 400 Grain Commando Head. There Riffle is S2/3, the Run is S5/6 and the Bucket is S8/9.
- Our 168 grain tips work best on 7-weight spey rods to 9 weight spey rods, or about a 375 to 475 grain Commando Head. Their sink rates are the same as for the 132 Grain Commando Tips.
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