fly line

[crappiegetter]

I was recommended from a guy in the fly fishing department of Cabelas to use Rio outbound short since I mainly fish for smallies. But the thing I can't figure out is what would be the pros and cons to using it over the stuff designed for smallies. From what I can find the only difference is the head weight and length. How much different would either be throwing flies and which would be better to use? Any help I'm lost on this one?

[ted4887]

What kind of rod are you using, and what type of water are you fishing in? Do you want a floating line, or a sinking line?

One thing about the Outbound lines is that they are .5-1 line weight heavy, IIRC. That's usually a good thing if you are throwing big flies and want help turning them over.

I'm a BIG proponent of the SA Mastery Textured Magnum lines. I have them in 6-10, and they're all great. However, there are a lot of good lines out there that will do the job. Answer my first few questions and a few of us should be able to help you pick the right one.

[crappiegetter]

I have two cheaper Cabelas rods nothing fancy both in 8wt, wasn't sure if I want to switch them both or just one. I mainly fly fish the Rum River with the occasional times at the lake. And I want floating line as I mainly use larger poppers, large baitfish patterns and larger clouser minnows. Also I might throw a larger pike fly. I have also heard that with the outbound line you can still throw flies well in a good wind. Just trying to figure out which would be better or just get the cheaper cabelas Smallie fly line for half the price.

[Cthulhu]

The Outbound short would be a solid line for your purpose but there would be many other good choices out there. A lot of those cheaper off-brand and house-brand lines are great, though they often don't last as long. My lines are all outbound shorts or cheapo lines, not saying those are best options but I can say both will work.

From what you describe it sounds like most any aggressively tapered floating line would work for you. I'm sure SA and Airflo would have some great options too, though I don't know much about those.

[MNFishhunter]

I second the RIO outbound, but my personal favorite is the Airflo Pike/Musky line. Buy the best line you can afford, and if you expect to fish a lot with this line, a better one would be a wise choice.

[Ufatz]

If you mainly want to fish for pike with large flies on lakes and ponds you might want to consider a floating shooting head. You can really punch a big fly out there with it BUT you cannot do any line mending with it of course.

You can make your own by simply cutting off the forward portion of a cheap bass bug taper type line, even a line weight higher than your rod, and then splice some level running line to it.

I'd like to have a dollar for every fly line I've chopped up to make "custom" lines for certain body of water or specific trip.

There are several ways you can deal with this situation, this is just another suggestion.