If you follow the progression of Skagit-style spey lines on our blog at all, you know that we’ve been pretty excited lately about two trends – the development of better shorter heads, and the development of intermediate density Skagit heads. Short Heads, Intermediate Heads We like fishing modern short Skagit heads (like the RIO Max…
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RIO
RIO Fly Line Cleaning Towelette
Last week we ran a post about the thorough, effective way to clean your fly lines. Today we present you with the ‘quick and dirty’ method. If you’re a ‘throw all the gear in a bag the night before the trip’ kind of angler, today’s post is for you. RIO’s Fly Line Cleaning Towelettes are…
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RIO Skagit Max Review
RIO has just started shipping the Skagit Max, their newest Skagit-style shooting head. The Skagit Max replaces the Skagit Flight as RIO’s go-to floating head for most two-handed rods. We fished the Skagit Max for a week at BC West last month, so we’ll tell you what we thought about it on the Dean. We…
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RIO GripShooter Review
It looks like RIO has just changed the spey running line game with their new GripShooter line. It’s running line that combines Slickshooter with a PVC coated ‘handling’ section at one end. More details shortly – let’s start with the background. Background Spey and switch anglers who prefer mono running lines like them for a…
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Making Loops on Sinktips
A second installation in our sinktip strategies novella, here’s a looping method that began as what Alaska West guide Jeff Hickman dubbed a ‘bush fix,’ and has since become one of the two main ways we’re custom building on-the-river sinktips to suit the current conditions. First off, get yourself about 40 feet of Rio’s T-whatever….
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Rio Bonefish QuickShooter Line
The most interesting new fly line that we cast at IFTD in Reno last month was Rio’s new Bonefish QuickShooter. We think it’s going to be a great line for chasing bonefish around South Andros Island. Background At Andros South we tend to prefer fly lines with fairly short, heavy heads and aggressive tapers. That’s…
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Rio Alloy Hard Mono
A few months ago, we ran a video featuring Bruce Chard that detailed his approach to tying leaders for flats fishing. If you fish on the flats, you really need to check out the video – we’ll give you another chance with a link right here. The foundation of Bruce’s leaders is Rio’s Alloy Hard…
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Gear Review Roundup
We like fishing gear. We even like trying out new fishing gear and then writing what we think about it. Right now there are 229 posts about gear on our web site, and we often hear from folks that they’d like to see more. Not to worry – we’ve got a bunch in the works…
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IFTD Gear – Sage, Rio, Redington, Tibor
…and the gear reports from IFTD continue! This afternoon’s update covers the highlights of what we’ve seen so far from Sage, Rio, Redington and Tibor. Sage 589-4 Xi3 Sage is making the kick-butt Xi3 in a 5 weight. The 8 foot 9 inch length helps it feel really light in your hand. This rod would…
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Rio Tropical Clouser – Sage and Rio Drawing
OK, this is your last warning. One week from today, we’re doing a drawing from the list of folks who are signed up for our weekly newsletter. The lucky angler whose name we draw is going to get sent, at no charge – not even postage, a $1375 super-high-end bonefishing setup – a Sage 890-4…
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