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Rio MidSpey Spey casting fly
line
Description
Tan coloured line has a compound front taper comprising
of a tip, 7 feet taper, 8 feet of level line, 4 feet of taper nine feet
of level and anther 4 feet of taper before reaching the body of the weight
forward portion, which is 28 feet 6 inches long. The rear taper is two
feet long and the rest of the 130 feet long line is running line. Total
head length including front and rear tapers is 65 feet.
Performance
This is described by Jim Vincent as "for the Spey
caster who has mastered the basic techniques and is looking for a line
that will help improve both casting distance and fishing prowess".
Although the description of the front taper appears to be complicated
it arises from the manufacturing technology and the the need to balance
the taper to obtain good energy dissipation along the line. In practice
this is by far the most predictable and easiest of the Rio Spey lines
and it encourages the use of good technique and smooth casting. Finish
is smooth and the line shoots well. It certainly ranks in the top group
of Spey lines. From a personal point of view the "weight forward
head" is not long enough for anyone wanting to cast long distances,
80 feet would have been a better length but 65 feet produces a respectable
loop and is ideal for the type of angler that the line was designed for
and indeed for most anglers. Certainly my favourite from this stable.
Rio MidSpey with interchangeable tips
This is the expensive version of the above line that comes
with a wallet and three additional 15 foot tips that can be looped off
and on the line easily to achieve different presentation depths. It also
has an additional loop-to-loop join in the fly line 11 feet further up
the line that is presumably designed to allow the line to be used with
a 30 foot tip or shooting head. The tips supplied are floating, clear
intermediate (type 1), a type 3 and a type 6 sinking. Matching tips of
vastly different densities to a floating line is not easy but in this
case the result is acceptable and I found that even the type 6 tip would
Spey cast well providing that the D loop is kept tensioned during the
process and for that to happen about half of the sink tip has to be in
the active part of the loop, i.e. out of the water. Unfortunately I have
not tried any of the other interchangeable tip lines and so a comparison
is impossible at this time, I can however confirm that this line is on
a reel and in my fishing bag, it has already landed a few salmon and I
expect to use it regularly.
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