As someone who spends a lot of time fishing in extremely varied conditions and locations locally and internationally, I constantly look for new or better ways to accomplish my efforts. Leader and tippet material are no different.
In the world of trout, it is easy to stay complacent with what works and works well but when you are hitting cold saltwater, spey casting to steelhead with large flies and heavy tips and then breaking out the 000wt for small native trout in mountain creeks, not every spool of clear line performs the same across the board.
Lately I have been hearing about this material from Germany called Stroft so I called Rajeff Sports, the US distributor and asked if I could sample a few sizes for our saltwater and steelhead. "No worries, be there tomorrow!" they said.
So the word on the street is this stuff is very small in diameter for its breaking strength, maintains some pretty amazing turn over qualities with larger flies and in the wind. I will say from the past few weeks that all of this is way true.
Fishing Puget Sound in heavy wind with baitfish flies is not always easy and larger diameter tippet is at times great. However, using 16lb test of Frog Hair is out of the question as the fly acts as if tied to a dogs tail, fish are dumb but not that dumb. 16lb Stroft is nearly the same diameter as 12lb Deep Blue, more rigid but not to the extent that you risk the same fall backs as flourocarbon, has elasticity and knots seat down well.
For steelhead, no brainer here. Smaller diameter means is will sink more uniformly with tips and heavy flies and with the higher breaking strength on smaller material, spooky fish are obviously less likely to spot it. Hanging on the bottom and when trying to break the fly, you will think your line is going to give before it does, it's that strong.
All in all, no brainer for me this stuff is awesome. Give it a shot and if your local shop doesn't have it yet, have them contact Rajeff Sports or your local Airflo rep.
Tighter Lines!Stroft leaders and monofilament, oh yeah!
As someone who spends a lot of time fishing in extremely varied conditions and locations locally and internationally, I constantly look for new or better ways to accomplish my efforts. Leader and tippet material are no different.
In the world of trout, it is easy to stay complacent with what works and works well but when you are hitting cold saltwater, spey casting to steelhead with large flies and heavy tips and then breaking out the 000wt for small native trout in mountain creeks, not every spool of clear line performs the same across the board.
Lately I have been hearing about this material from Germany called Stroft so I called Rajeff Sports, the US distributor and asked if I could sample a few sizes for our saltwater and steelhead. "No worries, be there tomorrow!" they said.
So the word on the street is this stuff is very small in diameter for its breaking strength, maintains some pretty amazing turn over qualities with larger flies and in the wind. I will say from the past few weeks that all of this is way true.
Fishing Puget Sound in heavy wind with baitfish flies is not always easy and larger diameter tippet is at times great. However, using 16lb test of Frog Hair is out of the question as the fly acts as if tied to a dogs tail, fish are dumb but not that dumb. 16lb Stroft is nearly the same diameter as 12lb Deep Blue, more rigid but not to the extent that you risk the same fall backs as flourocarbon, has elasticity and knots seat down well.
For steelhead, no brainer here. Smaller diameter means is will sink more uniformly with tips and heavy flies and with the higher breaking strength on smaller material, spooky fish are obviously less likely to spot it. Hanging on the bottom and when trying to break the fly, you will think your line is going to give before it does, it's that strong.
All in all, no brainer for me this stuff is awesome. Give it a shot and if your local shop doesn't have it yet, have them contact Rajeff Sports or your local Airflo rep.
Tighter Lines!
