Countdown Chart for Sinking Lines

It's a good idea to make up a "Countdown Chart" for fishing your sinking lines. This was brought to my attention at Phil Rowley's Stillwater School. We all are probably guilty of not counting down our sinking lines properly. We cast them, let them sit for a bit and start retrieving. We need to be more disciplined if we are targeting and want to work a specific depth of the water column. Especially for chiromomids and leeches.

I made up a chart with my the different types of sinking lines across the top of the chart and with depths running vertically along the left side. I did my chart in one foot intervals of depth from 1 foot to 20 feet.

The lines were broken down as;

• Standard Intermediate at 1 1/2" per second
• Cortland Clear Camo at 2" per second.
• Type III at 3" per second
• Type IV at 4" per second
• Type V at 5" per second
• Type VI at 6" per second
• Type VII at 7" per second

I'm going to laminate this chart and carry it in my kit bag and have it readily available. I'll use my watch to count down the lines to the desired depths. This may seem a little extreme, but I'll use it until I get more comfortable with my different lines and their associated sink times.

Count down your lines properly, use your watch and you will cover the full range of the water column properly and hopefully hook up more often.