On Fri, 3 Jun 2005 07:22:48 +0100, "The Leaping Frog"
wrote:

Peter,

I fish in Wales, Scotland and Scandinavia for salmon using a sage15'1 #10/11

Airflo has never excited me as a brand...for no particular reason

The leaping Frog



I'd rate Airflo Deltas quite highly for their WF salmon lines -- I
have four. I also own Rio, Cortland & SA. All are good lines,
however I've found the Airflo lines were smoother casting with better
turnover vs. the Rio Windcutter. I haven't tried Snowbee or Partridge
lines and I've only had a go with one Carron. The Carron was very,
very nice and the guys over here who have tried the other two rave
about them. There's a thread running on the Spey Clave Casting Forum
right now, where a few PNW casters are enthused with the new Snowbee
rods and lines. I did a search on the forum, trying to find line
recommendations for your rod but didn't turn up anything.

Sage two-handers are designed for the Rio Windcutter and the Skagit
style shooting heads used in the PNW. Compared to other UK brands,
and American ones like T&T and Loomis, the Sages aren't that great
with longer bellied lines. There's no "moving up" in progressing
from a Windcutter to a MidSpey. That's just marketing crapola
designed to get you to buy more lines. Windcutters aren't "beginner"
lines, they're a very useful short head line that fits the PNW type of
fishing quite well. I use everything from Scandinavian heads, to
Windcutters, to Delta Longs, to an XLT-- even DTs -- simply selecting
the line for the fishing job at hand.


"My dilemma is that I feel I know need a longer head ( I have reached
maximum distance with my current line and want to do a bit less spaguetti
retrieving before casting again) but also hate -when fishing smallish
streams - to be disabled because the rod does not really load until
most of the head is out of the top ring."

You've summed up the "Windcutter + Sage" dilemma perfectly. The
Windcutter is a crappy short casting line and the Sage ain't no hill
of beans either, in that department. A Windcutter can be cast as far
as any other line out there but the stripping is no fun. If you stay
with that rig, learn the line management techniques the Scandinavians
use, tucking large loops of running line under the little finger of
the bottom hand. It makes the spaghetti manageable. It's easy to
learn and becomes quite natural after a short while.

Given what you've told me about your requirements, I'd ebay the lot
and buy something more suitable for your type of fishing. If you have
to buy American, get either the new Loomis GLX Greaseliner or a T&T --
both are fabulous rods.

Peter

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