Rio's New Spey Line, Grand Spey

Juro and RLN,

I have spent about 25 hours fishing with the 10/11 Grand Spey, I love the line! Like you found Juro, it casts well both short (about 50 feet) and long (well over 100 feet with shooting some running line. It was a very easy line to learn the casting dynamics of and throws wonderful single and double speys. Also, it probably is not a good choice for rods shorter than 15 feet because of the length of the belly.

This line is so nice and has such dynamic turn-over, that I have been tempted to use it on smaller rivers like the upper Sky eventhough I know that a 10/11 is overkill on a river that is only 70 tp 90 feet across.

Be forwarned though that is requires a very large capacity reel to hold all of it and 100 or more yards of 30 pound dacron.

Simon, thanks for this line.

You and the Way/Choate team have done with this line and their XLT what Faulkus spoke about in the 80's about the need for line manufacturers to produce speciality lines specifically for spey casting. Jim Vincent lead the way with his Accelerator and Windcutter, then other line manufacuters joined in. Then you, Simon, added the Mid Spey, followed by the lines Dec helped design. Now you with your Grand Spey, and Way/Choate (SA) with the XLT have raised the bar once more. We are fortunate indeed too be the beneficariies of such largess.

Fred,

A few years back on the Skagit one fine April day there were two gents from B.C walked in and shared the famous 'Mixer' run with me. They both had B&W 18 footers. My 16 foot T&T looked donwright svelt compared to the B&W's.

Anyhow, the purpose of this post is that the gents from B.C wanted me to give their 18 footers a try and they both wanted to cast my T&T 16 footer as well. They had the rods rigged with 12 weight floating double taper SA Salmon lines. The rod had no trouble picking up the 12 weight double taper and throwing it over 100 feet out in the river. One had a sink tip on the front of his line and the other fellow was using an uncut line with a 4" brass tube fly on the end.

The only thing I didn't like about the rod was it is a rather slow, although progerssive rod. When I remembered to slow down and not try to force the rod to move faster than it was designed to do, it was a tremendous caster. I am still waiting (wishing/hoping) that T&T, G.Loomis, or Scott will produce a 17 or preferabley an 18 foot 11 weight.