Eatfood wrote:
The line I am looking for would be to shore fish high mountain lakes for trout with a 5wt fiberglass rod. I was thinking a sink 3, but I am a little unsure on sinking or floating running line and shooting head length (or even the sink 3)? does anyone have a specific brand/line they like for this?
You need a true-to-weight intermediate line then. Though, a regular floating will often work well, especially if the fish aren't picky like a lot of mountain lakes.
You don't want to go with a line with a medium sink-rate like the type IIIs, as they will take you in and out of the ideal water depth too quickly. It's certainly possible to target to the top 6 or so feet (where stillwater fish most often feed), but it's much harder and you usually stay there for a shorter period of time due to the faster sink rate.
It's important to remember that your flies will move along the path of the line in front of them as you strip them in. What you want is to have your flies sink to a certain depth and stay there, as you strip them in (slower is usually better than faster, in my experience). The intermediate line sinks at a consistent depth, and allows you to strip them in a much straighter path of motion.
A floating line is still good for this ideal part of the water column, since it keeps your flies nearish to the surface (depending on leader length, weight of your flies, etc.). The challenge with a floating line is that it gives an unnatural, up-and-down motion to your flies as the leader hangs at an angle, from the top of the water to the depth of your flies. So as you retrieve your flies, they move up along the path of the leader, and then sink again if/when you pause. You can often get plenty of fish in mountain lakes with a floating line, but that has more to do with them staying in the right part of the water column more often than not rather than their natural motion.