Rio Single Handed Spey line

I ran into Simon Gawesworth (yeah I'm name dropping already) today while he was giving a spey casting course on the Bow. He had a Sage One 590 lined with the new Rio Single Handed Spey line with him and he was kind enough to let me try it out. Ok, really he's a nice enough guy that he'd let anyone walking by give it a try if they asked. Seriously, one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet.

Right, so back to the line. I played around with it for a little while doing some double speys, snap Ts, and Perry pokes. All these casts were incredibly easy to perform with the taper on this line. Even a "turbo spey" - adding a haul to the cast - was so easy because the line loads the rod well making the timing pretty easy to nail. Even overhead casts work with this line making some pretty tight loops.

I think this line will work well for hopper-dropper and streamers. It should do ok for some dry fly fishing, but I don't think you're going to want to use it for tricos and little BWOs. From what I experienced it isn't the most delicate presentation line compared to something like the Trout LT or River & Stream. I'll have to see how it works for indicator nymphing, but right now there's no line out there that'll beat the Xtreme Indicator for that in my opinion.

If you already use a lot of single hand spey casts you're going to like this line. If you already know how to do spey casts on a switch or spey rod, this line will make it easier for you to transfer those casts to a single handed rod. If you don't know how to spey cast at all, you might want to pass this one by. It roll casts nicely, but so do other lines out there that are more versatile. I have one on order for my 5wt rod so I'll see how it really fishes when I get it.