max weight Shooting Head for 8 weight?

[fly]

Anyone have any experience or advice on how heavy you can go in this weight class?

250? 300+?

I fish a sage RPLXi 8 - its strong and fast and I love it, but I haven't ever fished a shooting head on anything but a 10#.

Thanks for any thoughts....

[Iwan]

I use 350 grain on RPLXi 8 wt. Works great.

[Ray]

I use a 200 grain on my 8-weight comfortably. I think you can throw a 250 grain, but anything above that may be too much for frequent casting.

If your going to fish from a boat, or a deep rip from shore, you may not have to cast a lot allowing you to throw a 300+ grain line with that rod.

[fly]

Thanks Iwan - can you get out good and far with that weight? I am a strong caster so if you can get good distances I'll take it from you and gear up accordingly.

[capemike88]

I have a 350 on my 9 and its a tad on the heavy side, I have been told a 275-300gr is the way to go, but thats for distance, like Ray said you could lob a 500gr into a rip I suppose..

I should also mention I don't fish a Sage either..

Mike

[Iwan]

Thanks Iwan - can you get out good and far with that weight? I am a strong caster so if you can get good distances I'll take it from you and gear up accordingly.

I made a mistake. I actually use 300 grain Airflo Depthfinder with floating running line. I used to have the intermediate running line but it tangled so much that I changed to the floating option and have had no problems. Even works great in the surf.

You can get good distance with this set-up on an 8-wt RPLXi. Hope this helps.

Iwan.

[RogerStg]

Fly, my 8 wt heads are all between 327 and 376 grains. They vary in length from 28 to 34 feet. FWIW, high density/fast sink lines like lc13 can be heavier than you'd expect and perform very well. I use thin running lines. If you use something like .035 floating line you need to drop down 20-30 grains.

BTW, I saw that you refered to youself as a strong caster. Strength has very little to do with casting heads. It's all timing and rythm. The rod does the work and "boing" the head shoots a mile.

[fly]

Thanks all - plenty to go on.

Roger, I didn't mean strong as in strength. Thanks for your tips on the running line.

Fly

[joe e.]

I bought a spool of lc-13 about 10yrs ago and put a 30ft section I made on an old lambiglass 8wt and was surprised how easily it cast,... 390gr.