Use a fly line that is as versatile as your fly fishing is

No compromise is my motto when it comes for fly fishing. And so year after year I bought more and more fly lines till I found a line that covers almost all of my fishery even without making a compromise

The RIO Versitip II from RIO Products

It was autumn back in 2013 when I decided to give the RIO VersiTip II a chance. It was not the first time I have heard about it. It exists already when I started fly fishing and it was offered to me several times by my local fly dealer in the past. I can’t remember how often I had the box in my hands thinking about it to purchase, but I haven’t done it till this autumn afternoon. Why didn’t I bought it already before?

The knot in the fly line or better said the loop to loop connection. This concept made me hesitating. I coudln’t imagine that this would be a normal smooth fly casting when always this loop to loop connections goes through the rod guides. I rather preferred to buy 3 and more different fly lines and spare spools than giving it a try. Later I switched over to shooting heads and from then onwards I was lost, buying ever thinkable combinations of line and running lines, so I thought to cover all types of fishery. And in the end I have a box full of fly lines, sure 15 to 20. And not all of them regularly used. Rather stressful in terms of logistic to carry all this around.

In the end the RIO VersiTip helped me in many ways. I have no worries in what I have to bring to the water. I have less stress selecting my tackle. I have a less lighter package when going out for fishing. And the most of all I do have the confidence to fish tor correct fly line. For you there is one more benefit I didn’t had. I wasted a lot of money to find to find my way through the tackle jungle, lines, spare spools, shooting head spools, bags, etc. All this to carry around.

I don’t wanna tell you all the boring details about it, like thickness of the body, thickness of the running line, etc.. I just wanna tell you that this line made my fishery more effective then ever before. Especially for pike fly fishing I don’t wanna miss it. You can fish the VersiTip as a floating, an intermediate, sink 3, sink 6 and there is even a sink 8 tip available if you really need to go done super fast. And all this by carrying a small tip wallet around.

Casting it, of course one of the most important properties for a fly line. This is simple said. It casts like a normal weight forward fly line. You don’t feel much the changeable leaders. The loop to loop connection goes easily through the guides, I won’t recognize it for long, a few hours of fishing and you forget about it. It becomes normal. Even with the heavy sink 6 tip it casts simple straight forward. There is no feeling of heaviness than normal fast sinking lines usually have. They very often feel nervous when casting, you need to cast very accurate to not mess up your entire cast.

This is just a quick indication. In fact it all ends up with the fly fisher, how far you cast, how fast you strip and how your flies behave.

But with all that good things there is also something to improve. The intermediate tip, the coating is very hard. Not a problem in spring, summer and autumn but in winter when it is really cold it gets harder to straighten the line when it got kinks. This is a little annoying but does not reduce its function. Luckily it will be also the tip you will not need the most of your time. 80% of the time I fish the Sink 3 because it is fishing exactly in the best depth and it shoots like a bullet because of its thin profile.

Available at Rudi Heger Fly Fishing (www.rudiheger.eu)

tight lines
Philipp