Fishing with Rod Discussion Forum
Fishing in British Columbia => Fly Fishing Cafe => Topic started by: creeper778 on February 21, 2015, 11:12:59 AM
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Hey all I would like to do some spey casts with my 8 wt single handed fly rod I'm lost in the various lines that are out on the market i don't want to break my 8 wt fly rod. Need some advice !! a lot of the rivers i fish there's no back cast room. I will be fishing various sink tip heads.
Thanks
Creeper778
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Haven`t tried spey fishing with a SH but with with a spey rod using a sink tip i would use a skagit head around 450-550 grains.
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Wulff Ambush lines
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I want to say Airflo 40+ and Rio outbound might work as well, but the Wulff ambush lines will.
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I've found spey casting with a SH rod is easily possible with any line that matches the rating of the rod as long as it's a long belly line - lines with the bulk of the weight up front like the Roi Outcast Long won't work that well. As well as the 2 mentioned any traditional taper WF line or a DT line will work. Rio also makes the short head Skagit Max short for use with tips and a running line. A good dealer should be able to help you match your rod to a line. I'd guess start with the AFTMA rating in rains (ie a #8 line is 210 grains) and go up 1 or 2 line weights, maybe more.
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Outbound short works very well and will turn over heavy tips and reasonably sized flies with little room needed for your d loop. Keep you tips around the 10' range and your flies reasonably sparse and you'll make your life easier.
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I've got the rio outbound 9wt short on my 8wt rod and it's great! I use it on the river and at the beach. I've got a dragonfly rod so it's a little squishy with being over lined but with the head out i can, on a single double haul, get a good 100 feet out no prob. Skagit style in the rivers, i'm better with the spey rod but I found this setup is great for smaller runs. snake roll and off shoulder casts need to be practiced ;)
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So a good bit of backing will be needed.
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X2 on the Wulff Ambush lines.
Maybe it's just me, but with the Rio Outbound (33ish foot head I think) line I had on my 8wt s/h rod I could not single hand spey cast it worth a damn. After several ppl on this site recomended the Ambush line (20ft head I think) I switched to it and noticed a HUGE difference! I can shoot a fair bit of line with just a roll cast whereas with the Outbound I'd have to roll cast then do a a few false casts and THEN shoot line. Don't save a few bucks and order it online, go to whichever shop you like that has staff who know their fly lines and get them to set you up. I really only single hand for coho and pinks in slowish water so I got the clear intermediate line. I can not switch tips, but I dont find this to be a problem. You can get a diff line where you can switch the tips.
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spawn sack made a very good point to what i want to accomplish thank you everybody for the responses
what size of reel should a person go for as the shooting lines are thick and 150 yards of backing takes up some space
whats a good sink rate for clear intermediate ??