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IMPORTANT
SITE UPDATE:
Visit the relaunched
Fish & Fly at fishandfly.com
Loop
Adapted 75 line
Reviewed by Terry Lawton
I have decided that for sometime now I have been labouring under a delusion. For years I have been convinced that for delicate presentations - like many other anglers I am sure - you must use a double taper fly line. But if such a line will not produce consistently good casts, it will be self-defeating. It must be better to use a line that you can cast well virtually all the time, regardless of taper. What has brought about this conversion?
Last season I broke my favourite rod, a St Croix Imperial 8' 6" 4# four-piece travel rod. I had used both a Cortland Lazer double taper line and a Ryobi masterline double taper. I replaced the rod with the same maker's Avid which has a slightly slower action as I decided that I wanted a rod with a slightly slower - and more progressive if possible - action. I was never terribly happy with the way the rod cast, particularly short casts, with either line although the Ryobi line was probably the better of the two. Fish & Fly's publisher Simon Lewin posted a question about lines for short casting and one reply, from Norway, recommended the Loop Adapted 75 line. This sounded interesting and so both Simon and I ordered lines from Loop.
The line is supplied in a very smart cordura, ventilated reel case. It
is designed for high precision casting up to about 20m and has a belly
of just 7.5m and a very short back taper. The special front taper and
weight ratio have been developed for both the popular Scandinavian underhand
cast as well as overhead casting.
I can say quite honestly that it has transformed my rod and casting. The
line is a real pleasure to cast from ultra-short casts of a couple of
rod's length of line to the typical length of cast when fishing small
to medium-size rivers. As well as casting well, the line is, so far, remarkably
free from tangles.
I am sure that using even a weight forward line that you know you can cast well almost every time is to be preferred to using a line that is going to give a good cast less frequently. And when you look at the diameter of the ends of 4# lines as well as the position of maximum thickness of the belly of the line, the difference between a weight forward and double taper is pretty minimal. Even the finest of lines, cast badly, is going to create a bigger splash than a well-cast weight forward line. Which is guaranteed to frighten the most fish?