RIO’s Skagit MOW Tips have been hugely successful since they launched three years ago, and for good reason. By combining floating and sinking sections of various lengths in sets of 10 foot tips, they allow anglers to fish at different depths, while maintaining the same overall length in their head/tip system. This has simplified things a lot for anglers who spey fish in the Skagit style – and we love anything that simplifies spey fishing.
The past couple of years have seen the introduction of a handful of Skagit heads that combine floating and intermediate-density sections. These intermediate heads have become popular not just because they give you a little more depth, but also because they make your fly swing slower and give a more direct line from your head to your fly.
Now RIO has launched their Skagit iMOW Tips, which are basically MOW tips that replace the floating section with an intermediate section. They’re all 10 feet long, and they break down just like the MOW tips did.
- A full 10 foot intermediate tip
- A tip with 7.5 feet of intermediate section and 2.5 feet of sinking section
- A tip with 5 feet of intermediate section and 5 feet of sinking section
- A tip with 2.5 feet of intermediate section and 7.5 feet of sinking section.
There are 3 different weights of iMOW Tips – heavy (the sinking section is T-14), medium (T-11), and light (T-8).
So…why would you use iMOW Tips?
Two Reasons
- You’re fishing a floating Skagit head, and you want to get some of the benefits of having an intermediate section of line on the back of your sinktip – a little more depth, a little slower swing, and a little more direct line from the head to the fly (because there’s less hinging between the head and the tip).
- You’re fishing an intermediate Skagit head, and you want to fish a MOW-type system to allow fishing at different depths with the same overall tip length. Floating MOW tips would not work so great on an intermediate head!
Should you throw out all your MOW Tips and replace them with the iMOWs? No, of course not. But if you want to add some ‘intermediateness’ to your floating Skagit setup, or you want to fish a MOW-type system with your intermediate head, give the iMOW Tips a go!
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