A Close Look at Salt- and Warmwater Fly Line Tapers

With help from Bruce Richards’s book Modern Fly Lines and illustrations by Joe Mahler, FFF Master Certified Casting Instructor Dusty Sprague offers up an excellent analysis of fly line tapers for bass and saltwater anglers.
“The front taper serves to reduce the mass of the line’s heavy belly and provide a more delicate delivery of the leader and fly than would be possible from the heavy belly alone. As the front taper unrolls during the cast, decreasing in diameter and mass, it accelerates and air resistance increases geometrically, dissipating the line’s energy.”