Flyfish Fanatic

Lets talk a little about fly lines. I have used many different lines in my flyfishing life and have found some to be of great quality and some to be a complete waste of money.

Now before I start, remember that these are MY opinions and I am not trying to make certain fly line manufacturers look good or bad.
The choices nowadays is almost endless, you can pick up lines for many different types of fishing, But are they all necessary? n my opinion they are not. I have found over the years that for lake fishing I can catch just as many fish with 3 lines than others can with 6-8 lines, I use 3 lines for fly fishing the lakes of BC and that is all. I have found that having a full floating line, a sink tip and a type 3 is all I need and these are the only lines I have for lakes.

Why some people have a floating, sink tip, type 1, typeII type III, typeIV and a Type V or VI is beyond me. Now I can see if you are trolling and fishing in a deep lake that you will need a TypeV to get the fly down to the fish, but for the shallow lakes of BC all I need is a TypeIII .

As for name brands, I have been more that happy with SA, RIO, and most of the Cortland brands. There are some I like better than others, and these are because of the feel and performance of the lines. The one HUGE pet peeve I have with fly lines is the Memory that some brands seen to have. I hate having to stretch my line before every outing and with some of the brands I have used over the years this does happen. The one line that I have found to be the worst of the lot is Sedge. I picked one up a few years back and found it to be the worst buy of my fly fishing life. This line needs not only to be stretched every outing, but every day, It is terrible stuff.

Some of the ones I have found to be the best are SA, Rio, AirFlo, and Cortland.

I have used all of them and right now I have a SA, and 2 Cortland lines on my reels. There is one more that I have been looking at in the last little while. This is the Multi tip or versa tip systems from Rio, and Airflo. They seem to be great lines, but I am a little Leary about the fact that besides the floating line the lines are really just sink tips of varrieing grains.

These lines seem to be the way to go for river fly fishers, but unless I get more reports from fellow lake fly fishers I will be waiting to pick on up. I am a little sceptical because I am convinced that a dedicated Type III is better than a multi tip Type III on the end of a floating line. If these lines are as good as they say they are, this may be the way of the future for the fly fisher. It would be nice to be able to switch over from a floating line to a Type II without having to change spools and having to re thread the fly line through the guides every time.

I would suggest that you do some research on fly lines before buying ANY brand.  There have been some makes (Even the better ones) that have had problems with certain line they produce, so make sure you find out all you can before buying.

Fly lines are not cheap to buy and they are one of the most important parts of the fly fishers arsenal so get to know what you are buying before you go out.

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