Tag Archives: fly line

A new line: Cortland Fairplay

I called up to my local shop, Harvey Angling, a few week back in search of a new fly line. My line had just about given up the ghost and I had the first round of the Welsh Trials coming up. I have tried may different brands in both weight forward and double taper. There are so many different lines to choose from these days, all claiming to be the best. Where do you start in even trying to decide on a line?

For me, it’s important that a floating line lies straight and retains it’s straitness. There’s nothing more frustrating than buying a line that developed coils.

Looking through the selection of Rio, Airflo, Greys and many more, I decided on the Cortland Fairplay. Gareth the shop owner claimed he has had one of these on his reel for 7 years and it is as good as new. This is the first Fairplay I have bought

Back home, I putting the line on my reel, I felt my decision was the right one. The line felt smooth, and seemed to have no memory. What I also liked was the fact that the line has a very small amount of stretch. This is great as if the line ever sits on the spool for any length of time, you can easily give it a small stretch to remove any coils.

So off I went to the river to give it a go. I was surprised at how well the line cast. It felt slick and well balanced on my rod. My usual lines have been weight forward’s, this being a double taper naturally felt better on presentation. I also love the cream colour of the line as many others are very bright.

A few hours fishing dries and I can see why Gareth at Harvey Angling recommended this. I am sure I will have many, many trips with this line before considering a replacement.

Finally, the best bit about this line: It was only £20.00

Cortland Fairplay double taper fly line

The Airflo Story

The Wye

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I managed to get back up the Wye again this weekend with a good mate Sion Lewis. It was his first outing up there and I was hoping that is was going to be a good days fishing for him on the ladies.

We turned up to the river pretty early so just to kill some time, hoping the air temp would warm up and get a few flies in the air I described to Sion my fishing tackle, why what rods and line I use. Sion was most interested in my fly line choice. I was given a fly line by Kieron Jenkins which had a heavier taper towards the front few feet of the line. He described that the heavier tip would allow me to propel my flies, roll or overhead casting. I really like the fly line for klink and dink fishing, I can use a bigger dry fly and heavier nymphs as the taper of the line carries the extra weight easier at short and long range. Normal fishing line tapers are good for casting light dries and small nymphs but the Airflo Ridge Supple Tactical fly line excels in accuracy. Only recently I’ve got back into using the klink and dink, and im sure the line has helped me alot. Im impressed.

Here's the line - Click the pic to take a look

Anyway – back to the fishing. I wanted to fish the waters just below where me and Paul Jenkins fished first last week high up the Wye valley. I was hoping that it would be a little better than the day we had up there. It was Sion’s first trip on the upper Wye and he was well excited to fish new waters. The weather was looking great but there was a down river wind that was picking up by the hour and making it a little difficult but it didn’t bother us too much really, the thing was the wind was blowing all the leaves in the river and this was worse than anything. At some point you had to wait for a small clearing on the water surface to cast the fly. For the tight condition in amongst the cover and trees, the fishing was more at your feet in most places so I was using the klink and dink on my 8ft 4wt fishing rod. Sion was using a similar outfit also on the klink and dink.

It was quite early when we started fishing and it was very slow without any takes or even seeing fish moving or feeding, I knew from the weekend before it would probably pick up by the afternoon. As we worked our way up river keeping a sharp eye on the water we started to see a little fly life, Stone flies mostly and a few odd olives of some sort. This was just enough to kick off a few fish to rise, finally something to target. I covered one rise and with a quick splash I was into a fine wild brown trout. The colours were just beautiful and I would say it was on the 2 lb mark. Soon as I got him to the net and a quick look he was released without me even laying a hand on him. Sion stepped in where I was and after a few short casts beside a deep pocket on the far bank he was into a fine grayling on the nymph. The cheeky smile said it all, it was a new PB him. result! Nice one butty 🙂

A few photos of are great day we had below.