Simple question

[pinkygonzales]

There have been several threads on this recently so I have no ulterior motive here whatsoever. I just need some clarification.

Is it called "flossing" because yarn gets caught in a fish's teeth wether or not they intended to bite?
Is drift fishing with a corky universally considered flossing? (What about with no yarn?)
Is a corky meant to imitate an egg or is it really just a flotation device to land a hook in a fish's mouth.

I'm asking this because I had no idea that I could have been flossing when I was going after winter steelhead earlier this year. I have since gone to fly fishing almost 100% of the time, but I'm curious to know the answer.

In a nutshell, why is it called flossing, and what's the difference between that and snagging?

 

[DYJ]

Fish sit on the bottom opening and closing their mouths. If you drag your leader through their mouth then jerk you 9.5 foot rod all the way behind you, the hooks comes at em at mach 1 and hooks em outside the mouth, then you are flossin. You can do it with a corky and hook.... or a wet fly/egg pattern. Not everyone fishing with that stuff is a flosser, no matter what the 'cool kids' from this forum say. If yarn is caught in a fishes teeth then that fish was tryin to eat the yarn. I use corkies as a drift bobber to bring my presentation off the bottom a bit, normally my presentation is a sand shrimp tail or a scented piece of yarn . Steel head will hit just a corky but they are kinda like teenagers sometimes and will hit anything.

But, it really doesn't matter. Just use a sensible leader and go have fun. You'll never have a problem that way

 

[pinkygonzales]

That's very helpful, DYJ. So given this description, would you say that snagging and flossing are the same thing?

 

[Spydeyrch]

I would say that flossing is the use of a non-normal or non-standard length of leader with the intent of passing that leader through the opened mouth of the fish and hooking them without enticing them to bite at your offering. Think of when you floss your teeth: you run a long piece of floss or line through your mouth, right? Well same thing here, you are running a long piece of leader through the fish's mouth. The difference being that you don't try to hook yourself when you floss lol, whereas a flosser does try to hook a fish!!

You can be snagging if you floss but just because you snag doesn't mean that you flossed a fish.

Snagging is considered to be hooking the fish anywhere on it's body with the exception of the inside of it's mouth. So if you floss and hook it on the outside of the mouth, you are both flossing and snagging. But if you throw a spinner at a visible fish (or non-visible for that matter) and you hook it on the back, tail, gut, etc., then you are just snagging. There can be intentional snagging and non-intentional snagging.

Does that help clarify things?

-Spydey

 

[pinkygonzales]

It sure does!

Thanks for keeping this on-topic, guys.

 

[kirkster]

It sure does!

Thanks for keeping this on-topic, guys.

Lol imo snagging a fish is done when a fish is visable and you intently cast over the fish get you hook close to it and purposely attempt to set the hook into the fish.
Now flossing... Is done by accident.. ya ya I know your odds are better when your leader is longer. But that's not the point. The point is you can't tell if a fish has been flosser until its landed and see if its hooked on the outside of the mouth. If it is simply unhook and release the fish. And that is considered a foul hooked fish..
The term "flossing" is more of a term that was built on arrogant ignorance.
I guess we could ask some folks from Washington. I have fished a few rivers up there where it is legal to keep a fish hooked from the full plate forward. And even in there synopsis doesn't have the definition of a flosser .