Top Spey Lines for 2018

January 18, 2017 By Jerry Darkes

Skagit Scout

Available in grain weights from 150 to 480, and in lengths of 13.5' to 18.5', the ultra-short Skagit Scout is designed for restricted casting with short, lightweight two-handed rods. Skagit Scout lines are quick and easy to identify and use. The black loop is at the rear of the head; the fly line ID is positioned near the front loop where you attach the Flo Tip or other Skagit-type tip. Skagit revolutionary Tom Larimer helped design the Skagit Scout to have a stable loop through the end of the cast, and recommends the 270-, 330-, and 360-grain Scouts for the new 3-, 4-, and 5-weight G.Loomis ShortSpey rods. $60| airflofishing.com

Skagit Scout Spey Tip

OPST Commando Head

Ed Ward is one of the originators of Skagit lines and Skagit-style casting, and teaches a sustained-anchor casting style with what he calls a "continuous out and around" casting stroke. Some excellent casters pause just before the forward stroke to allow a full D loop to form and develop energy, but Ward specializes in ultrashort-head Skagit casting and avoids any kind of a pause in tight spots. Commando Heads are best with this type of fluid cast and come in lengths of 12' to 18' for single-hand rods or switch rods shorter than 11'. Starting at 150 grains and increasing in increments of 25, it's possible to be extremely precise about finding the right head for your rod. $55 | opskagit.com

OPST Commando Spey Tip

RIO Skagit Trout Max

Don't let the name fool you. Yes, these Skagit tips are an excellent choice for two-handed trout fishing, but they also work for smallmouth bass in rivers. At 11', they are the shortest of the ultra-short Skagit heads on the market, making them exceptional for Spey casts with single-handed rods. For switch rods, lengths of less than 11' are ideal. We tested the 200- through 275-grain Skagit Trout Max lines with Redington's 3-weight Hydrogen Trout Spey ($350) and found a sweet spot with the 250-grain head. With so many subtle gradations of grain weight, it takes some experimentation to find the right Skagit Trout Max head, but when you do find it, it's just right. These heads are built on RIO's ultra-low-stretch ConnectCore so you can better feel strikes on a tight swinging line and set the hook decisively. But the head is only 11' so if you want that low-stretch feel in your system you'll need something similar in the running line and the tip. $50| rioproducts.com

Rio Skagit Trout Max Spey Tip

Spey Lite Skagit Head

Scientific Anglers' newest Skagit line is a short, powerful head from 11' to 18' in grain weights of 150 to 360. The two-color line has a textured, black marker at the end of the head for a visible—and audible cue—for where to begin your cast. This line is also available as a 100' Spey Lite Integrated Skagit with a seamless connection between the running line and the head. It's the only super-short compact integrated Skagit line out there, and eliminates the clicking and bumping of the loop connections running through your guides if you do a lot of stripping. The downside is that you can't experiment with different head weights using the same reel and running line. $50 | scientificanglers.com

Spey Lite Skagit Head Spey Tip

TC Tips are available in lengths of 8' or 10', which gives you a little more flexibility when you're dealing with smaller, light-line switch rods. Use 8' tips (80 grains) with head weights from 240 to 300 and 10' tips (120 grains) on heavier heads. Most Skagit tips in this category have a single density of sinking line, but Third Coast Tips are double-density sinking tips so you have more choices than just either sinking or floating. You can choose sinking tips with these sink profiles: Int./Sink 2; Sink 2/Sink 4; Sink 3/Sink 5; or 3.0/5.0. Of course, there's also a floating version. All five tips are available in a kit for $125

$25| scientificanglers.com

Third Coast Spey Tips

OPST Commando Tip

Instead of focusing on sink rate, OPST has designed a series of Skagit tips centered around the grain weight so it's easy to understand and modify how much your Skagit system weighs, fine-tune the casting weight, and then modify the sink rate from there. The 12-foot tips weigh 96, 132, or 168 grains so you can easily match them with light, short-head Skagit lines. Within each grain weight there are three different sink rates called Riffle, Run, and Bucket so you can maintain the same casting weight but reach different depths by using different tips. The tips are looped at each end, and the rear loops have convenient color-coded line IDs to identify both grain weight and sink rate. $24 |opskagit.com

OPST Commando Spey Tip

Airflo Flo Tips

Airflo seems to always do things just slightly differently, and the case of Skagit sinking tips is no different. There are four different Flo Tips, each one has 2.5' of intermediate line and 7.5' of either T-7, T-10, T-14, or T-18. A complete kit is $121. What we've found is that the T-7 Flo Tip matches with most heads like the Skagit Scout under about 250 grains. For heavier T-10 and T-14 Flo Tips you need a 250- to 350-grain Skagit head. $27 |rajeffsports.com

Airflo Flo Spey Tip

RIO InTouch Skagit MOW Light

Each set of MOW tips has six tips; a 10-foot floating, a 10-foot with 2.5' floating and 7.5' sinking, a 10-foot with 5' of sinking and 5' of floating, a 10-foot with 7.5' floating and 2.5 sinking, a 10-foot full sinking, and a 12.5' full sinking. The complete kit is $150. For short, ultralight rods and Skagit heads less than 475 grains—and especially with shorter heads like RIO's Skagit Trout Max—it's important to use MOW light tips. There are also MOW medium, heavy, and extra-heavy versions, but they are too much weight for a light Skagit head. Light InTouch Skagit MOW Tips use T-8 sinking material with a sink rate of 7" per second. $25 | rioproducts.com

RIO InTouch Skagit MOW Light Spey Tip

Small Stream Hopper Fishing

How-To/Techniques

Small Stream Hopper Fishing

Aside from some of the big stonefly hatches, hopper season is often the most anticipated time on the Rocky Mountain angler's calendar. And while the big rivers offer some fantastic opportunities, fishing smaller streams and tributaries often provides faster fishing–sometimes with some surprisingly large trout. Check out our tantalizing tutorial on some of the most exciting fishing of the year.

How-To/Techniques

Fly Tier's Bench: How to Tie Egan's Poacher

How-To/Techniques

Fly Tier's Bench: How to Tie Egan's Poacher

Fly-fishing competition guys like Lance Egan and George Daniel figured out that you didn't always need to strip a streamer to draw a trout's attention. Sometimes a very slow, swinging and even hopping motion down deep was just what the fish were after. Egan has debuted his latest jig-hook streamer offering, and dubbed it the Poacher. It is not only a compelling fly to tie and fish, but the logic and thought process behind it are interesting as well.

Destinations/Species

The Tightest Line

Destinations/Species

The Tightest Line

A look back at Pandion Creative's film The Tightest Line that profiles several guides across the globe, after 10 years. Huge dry-fly browns, fly-eating sharks, Pacific Northwest steelhead, and a charming collective of thoughts and personalities on fly fishing.

How-To/Techniques

How to Tie Craven's Mr. Jones Dry Fly

How-To/Techniques

How to Tie Craven's Mr. Jones Dry Fly

The Mr. Jones, an adult cranefly pattern that skips, skates, and hops, has proved effective all summer long, especially during the hot afternoons and early mornings when these bugs are most active. I find myself often tying it on when things are slow just because it's so fun to fish, and more often than not, I end up smiling and laughing at the antics of aggressive fish making fools of themselves.

How-To/Techniques

How to Tie Craven's Mr. Jones Dry Fly

How-To/Techniques

How to Tie Craven's Mr. Jones Dry Fly

How-To/Techniques

How to Fight Trout Effectively and Get them in the Net Quickly

How-To/Techniques

How to Fight Trout Effectively and Get them in the Net Quickly

The battle between angler and trout is one of the most exciting and nerve-rattling experiences in fly fishing. In that intense moment it feels like time is standing still. The following tips will help calm your nerves, and allow you a chance to gain control. Whether you're fishing drys, nymphs, or streamers, battling a resident river trout or a lake monster, these techniques will tire the fish quickly, and successfully allow the trout a safe release to fight another day.

News

Patagonia Advocates for Dam Removal

News

Patagonia Advocates for Dam Removal

From Patagonia: “Each time we remove a dam, life comes rushing back in. For years, we've known that dams are lethal. Now we know they're methane factories. Today, the facts are impossible to ignore. Removing dams repairs our climate, restores lost landscapes, and unites communities. We now have a chance to return life to our rivers.”

Destinations/Species

Science in the Thorofare

Destinations/Species

Science in the Thorofare

Yellowstone National Park employees and Ph.D. students horse pack into the most remote location in the Lower 48 to research spawning-size Yellowstone cutthroats from Yellowstone Lake. The upper upper Yellowstone River drainage, also known as the Thorofare, has long been considered one of the world's greatest fly-fishing destinations.

How-To/Techniques

How to Tie the Picky Eater Perdigon

How-To/Techniques

How to Tie the Picky Eater Perdigon

Like it or not, competition angling is driving many of the advancements in our sport. And while I generally find Perdigons and their cousins to be pretty boring flies, Zach VanDeHey, a 39-year-old Oregonian, and his approach to his Picky Eater Perdigon gives me hope for the future. VanDeHey hatched the idea for his Picky Eater while feeling was that his conventional Perdigons were sinking too fast. Though the entire premise behind slender-bodied nymphs with big tungsten beads is to plummet through the water column to the bottom, these fish were feeding in the middle of the water column. VanDeHey got to work on the vise to design a fly that would sink more slowly and spawned the brilliant idea of not only downsizing the bead, but also adding a dubbing-loop CDC collar to function as a parachute and reduce the rate of descent. This flowing CDC collar adds tons of fluid motion to the fly, and creates enough drag and lift to keep the fly drifting mid-column. Follow along as I twist up this super-fishy fly.

Fly Fishing the Plunge Pools of Yosemite Falls

Ross Purnell and a crew of climber-anglers make a once-in-a-lifetime trip to “middle Earth” to fish for an isolated population of native rainbow trout. The Middle Cascades of Yosemite Falls in Yosemite National Park is a next-to-impossible section of water to access that few have ever even seen, much less fished. It requires a dangerous climb, followed by rappelling into a gorge, then swimming to the fish. It would require careful planning, even more careful navigation, and a little luck. Follow along on this adventure of all adventures to see what they find, and how they deal with the numerous challenges, both foreseen and unforeseen, in Descent.

Gear

Scientific Anglers Launches Reimagined Tropical Saltwater Fly Lines

Gear

Scientific Anglers Launches Reimagined Tropical Saltwater Fly Lines

The Magnitude series is a completely new creation in the same way that the first breathable waders and the first graphite rods were fundamentally different from their predecessors. These are the first lines from Scientific Anglers that are not polyvinyl chloride. Magnitude lines are made from new, naturally buoyant polymers. That's one reason why they are clear or available with clear tips—because these new polymers don't require an infusion of tiny glass spheres or bubbles for buoyancy.

Gear

Check Out Grundens' New Vector Wader!

Gear

Check Out Grundens' New Vector Wader!

Director of Product Curtis Graves walks us through Grundens' new Vector Wader. It features four-layer laminated puncture-resistant microfiber face fabric and is designed with Grundens' traditional high-mobility structure. It has two large front pockets, is convertible to waist-high, and has a new “warming” neoprene in the stocking feet. Available now.