A sinking shooting head with a head length of 38 feet is just about perfect with a two-handed rod of 13 to 13-and-a-half feet. At 510 grains, the new RIO Scandi VersiTip measures exactly 38 feet with a selection of interchangeable 15-foot sinking tips in various densities. If you really need to get down, simply swap the Floating Body of the Scandi VersiTip for either the Intermediate Body or the Sinking 4 Body. Add a 15-foot sinking tip with a sink rate faster than the body of the line, a short length of leader, and you’re ready to cast to the horizon and fish down to the stones.
Once you start using sinking shooting heads with either a single spey or a snake roll, you’ll find you can cast a much larger fly than you can handle with most floating versions. It is easy to fish heavily weighted tube flies for Atlantic salmon (where legal) with fairly light rods—a 13-and-a-half foot rod for an 8-weight is my favorite all-around rod. I prefer the Sage ONE 8136-4 for Atlantic salmon or B.C. steelhead when making touch-and-go casts with sinking lines and heavy flies. I rarely select a 14-foot rod due to the size or weight of the fly.
If I’m fishing bigger rivers with sinking tips, I prefer a longer shooting head to cut down onstripping. My “go-to” set-up is the RIO UniSpey VersiTip Shooting Head. I remove the 20-foot floating tip at the business end of the shooting head and add a 15-foot sinking tip. My total head length (including the sinking tip) is right around 50 feet for a 13-and-a-half-foot rod. Longer heads fly farther than shorter heads, and I end up stripping less and fishing more.