When we fish the Kanektok and the Dean for kings and steelhead, most of the time we’re fishing Skagit-style spey lines with tips made of Rio T-14.
T-14 is a very versatile material for constructing sinktips used when Skagit casting. The ‘14′ means 14 grains per foot – it’s pretty bulky and sinks pretty fast, and it’s great for turning over and then sinking the big flies that are most often used when fishing in the Skagit style.
Unfortunately pre-made T-14 tips aren’t readily available, and that means you need to cut the lengths that you want to fish and put loops on both ends. Rio sells T-14 in bulk spools as well as in packs that combine 30 feet of T-14 with some braided mono loops to be attached to the tip. Unless you’re going to turn your basement into a tip factory, the 30-foot packs probably work just fine.
Here’s how we make our trips. Much credit here goes to Ed Ward, one of the grandfathers of Skagit casting and our head guide at Alaska West.
- Cut T-14 to the desired length (more on this below).
- Slip a braided mono loop over the butt end of the T-14.
- Tie a single nail knot over the end of the loop to hold it in place.
- Bonus tip: Whip a colored section of fly tying thread just past the nail knot on the side closest to the loop. Come up with a scheme that maps the color of the thread to the length of the tip.
- Seal the nail knot and the colored thread with UV Knot Sense for durability.
- Slip a braided mono loop over the leader end of the T-14.
- Tie a single nail knot over the end of the loop to hold it in place.
- Bonus tip: Color the entire braided loop on the leader end of the tip with a black Sharpie, so you don’t have a big white worm-looking thing swimming near your fly.
- Seal the nail knot on the leader end of the tip with T-14 with UV Knot Sense.
This construction method results in strong, extremely durable tips – the UV Knot Sense makes the connections really hold up. We’ve got 3 seasons of heavy use on our tips with no signs of wear.
Most of the tips that we fish on the Kanektok and the Dean are between 10 and 18 feet long.
- A basic set of tips to cover most conditions would include 10-, 13-, 15- and 18-foot tips.
- If you wanted to be really prepared, you could make 7-, 10-, 13-, 15-, 18- and 21-foot tips (with the 21-foot tip probably only applicable for chinooks on the Dean).
- If you wanted to be super-prepared and/or you want to rig multiple rods, you could make 2 tips in each of the lengths listed above.
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A couple of pictures would do wonders! just a pic of the finished end that hd the tying thread on it. Otherwise excellent and very informative piece.
When I was fishing with Ed Ward in the Fall he mentioned that he had changed how he does the fly end loop: He now stripps off the tungston coating of the T14, exposing the core mono — which is about 20 to 24 lb test. With about 2 1/2 inches exposed one can tye a nice little perfection loop.
He wrote something about it on Speypages recently.
I tried it, and it seems to work very nicely and looks cleaner.
If one takes a couple of feet of 8 to 12 lb tippet material and holds it in a loop, then hitch that loop near the end of the T14, and yank, the coating comes off nicely. A couple of times I took off less than I needed, which is actually easier, then repeated to get a bit more.
Has anyone else tried this? Mor importantly, has anyone tried it on a really big fish???
Any idea what size the braided loops are that come with the T-14 package, or what size works best for T-11 and T-14? The loops come in regular, large and XL I believe.
Hi Bobby,
In my relatively few trips to Kanektok for chinook fishing, I have used a Rio Regular braided loop for my T14 or T17 tip butt end, as I think the Large is too loose. I nail-knot it three times, the final nail-knot near the neck of the loop, which may be over-kill but even so, then I add a drop of Zap-a-gap glue, so these loops then NEVER come loose. The Rio XL loop is meant for the butt end of shooting heads I think.
For the “point” of the T sinktip, I use about two feet of 40 or 20 pound Maxima, doubling-back the tip of the T14 and tie an Albright knot or nail-knot, with a tail you can then trim to suit after you do a perfection or rapala (non-slip loop) onto which you can tie loop-to-loop or alternatively double surgeon knot, tapered down to 15 pound Ultragreen which is plenty strong enough for kings in my experience. If you want to keep it really simple, just albright 20 or 15 pounds Ultragreen straight onto the T14, about 5 feet will do. The reason I use the heavier stuff and taper-down, is to help turn-over the big king flies. Some folks might think the tapering-down only introduces more potential failure-points in the leader, but I haven’t experienced that. Using 15 pounds at the point, means you don’t lose the whole shooting head if you hit a snag and have to use some muscle………yet it’s still strong enough for any king I’ve hooked so far.
Final touch is to use indelible marker pen to color the braided loop black. Happy fishing. We are already confirmed to return for two weeks next June/July !
Thanks for all the great info Philip!