Techy Thursday - My Winter Airflo Flyline Kit
With winter well and truly in effect our summertime floating kit won’t do too much to get us deep to where the fish now are. Fish are holding deeper in the lakes as temperatures plummet, out back of the rip and beyond the drop offs. Here are three lines that get a real workout from me over the winter months and ensure that myself, and my clients are fishing where the fish will be.
Airflo Sixth Sense Clear Camo Intermediate
This is the elegant line in my winter collection and one I most enjoy fishing. Fishing lake edges and across weed beds this line blends right in. With low stretch power core there’s just enough give to protect lighter tippets when eaten mid strip, yet enough sensitivity to feel the slightest bump. The 20’ front taper wont chew up the surface and allows a smooth, controlled presentation to wary, shallow water cruisers. The fast intermediate is a great line for minimal disturbance on those often bright, glassy mid-winter days when you only want to be a couple of feet subsurface.
A fast sink, integrated shooting head for banging out the distance and getting deep on still waters, big rivers and estuaries. Even on smaller still waters where fast stripping buggers are called for, this 7ips sinker will keep your flies down where you want them without lifting to the top. One piece polyurethane lines are some of the thinnest, yet most durable on the market ensuring you get deep through the column, fast with minimal resistance.
Unsure of Shooting Heads? Check out our piece here ( https://www.manictackleproject.com/techy-thursday-shooting-heads-forty-plus-lines-and-how-to-handle-them/ ) to have you casting like a champ.
For getting down behind the rocky drop offs, swinging on the single hander or ‘banging the banks’ with streamers, this is a pretty cool line. This quick loading ‘pick up and let rip’ taper features a super slim 17’ DI 7 tip to get down through the column faster than anything on the market. The intermediate belly smooths out the cast to provide optimal control and the floating running line shoots long, and means you’re not struggling to keep a sinking running line at the surface on the shoot.
Though I run a full line up from slow intermediate through to the Di-7, I find I’m constantly fishing either the fast intermediate a foot or three subsurface, or wanting to hit the depths with the Di-7. The Streamer Max is a very adaptable line in still waters, estuaries or river situations and is a regular in my summertime quiver also for pulling streamers and swinging deeper runs.
Don’t limit yourself. Because life’s too short to not catch fish.