I built an 8wt TL. Johnson blank. It cast an 8wt line very nicely. I wanted to make some shooting heads for casting in to the lake for steelies and maybe some stripers in the salt. I had an 8wt outbound it had a 30' head with a weight of 330 grains but it was to heavy. I made some 290grain heads and I thought the were still to heavy. Tonight I tested it and got an ERN of 7.9 and a AA of 70. that matches up with 200grains to load that rod. Do shooting heads follow the same rule or do shooting heads load the rod deeper and need to be heavier?

Thanks,
Bob

The rod has no idea whether you're tossing a regular fly line, shooting head, or a chuck of lead. 200 grains is 200 grains.

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Why do most people tell you to go up a wt or 2 when using a shooting head?

Bob

"Most People" may just be repeating something they've heard. However, these is a reason for it when dealing with subjective fly rod ratings. Let's say you have a rod labeled as a "10-weight." Most likely it was designed to cast a very long length of a 10-weight line, with the caster holding a great deal more than 30-feet of the line beyond the rod tip. Remember, the more line you put past the rod tip, the more weight you put on the rod. So instead of putting 280 grains (30-feet of 10-weight line) on the rod, you may be putting 300 to 320 on it when you put 60 to 70 feet beyond the tip.

However, this isn't true with a shooting head. All you have is that 30 feet of head - that's all there is and the thin running line won't add much more no matter how much of it you put out there. So a rod intended to handle 60 or 70 feet of 10-weight fly line might need an 11 or 12 weight shooting head to equal the same amount of weight.

200 grains is still 200 grains, no matter what form it comes in.

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"Most people" striper fishermen around here are probably using an "8 weight", with an ERN of at least 10.5 (Sage, TFO, Redington, Loomis) I would guess, with a 350 grain shooting head. And the casting style loads the rod deeper, with an open loop so you don't crack the back of your head with a 2/0 lead eye Clouser. I talked to one of the manufacturers at the fly fishing show here, and it sounds like they're making saltwater 8 weights for most peoples expectations of using a 350 grain head.

Thanks it makes sense. I knew it was not what I would normally call an 8wt more of a 7wt one of the sage bluegill lines at 220 grain head might be the ticket for a longer shooting type line on this rod. Last week the rod handle several nice 8lb steelies from the erie tribs nicely.