A lot of the time I fish wetflies and nymphs I've found that it is necessary to add weight to the fly in order to get it to sink to the depth that the fish are at or to get the fly to go down at an acceptable rate. The first choice I go with is to add split shot to my leader but often that seems to cause more problems than it solves. The shot doesn't always stay were I want it, it falls off, and it tends to make casting a hazzard if the split shot is to large. So I started to look for a substitute to split shot and came up with a versitile and cheap solution.

   MY idea was to create something that will do basically two things. 1. sink the fly and 2. stay on the leader and not be difficult to cast. What I came up with was similar to the sleeve type weights sold by Orvis and other companies except the sleeve would be formed from a strand of copper wire wound around a sewing needle and resembling a small coil spring.

   The advantages to this system is that you can create weights of different sizes to fit your needs quickly with materials most of us have in our tying kits or can salvage for next to nothing (I get my wire from toy electric windings or old electrical components). The flexibility of the coil allows me to add the weight to my leader and then expand it slightly to hold it in place this also makes casting easier because the weight is distributed over a larger area and eliminating the hinge effect often encountered when casting split shot or other weights.