All depends on what you wish to do. I use a lot of single hand lines on my switch rods, ranging from overhead casting clousers for striped bass on the coast, to Spey casting trout lines and small wets for trout. If we're doing a lot of overhead casting then I most definitely prefer single hand lines. If we're Spey casting and we either don't want to use a head system, or we need finesse, then single hand lines are an option. They can even be convinced to Spey cast weighted, higher drag flies if need be.

I have six videos up on my channel where I'm casting single hand lines on a switch rod. Rather than put up all six, I'll just put this one up here as it's probably the most extreme example - hanging 15' tips off of the end of an Airflo Sniper 10 wt. overhead line and Spey casting it on a Loomis PRO-4x 11' 6" 9 wt and a 13' 7/8 wt.

While this isn't the most efficient Spey casting system out there, it proved to be a very good short range setup which would cast reasonably long if we had to.

 

As a rule of thumb, if you want to roughly convert to single hand metrics, add 2 weights to the the Spey rating for a switch rod, and 3 for a Spey rod (>=12'). So for example a line to cast overhead on an 11' 7wt switch rod would be a 9wt single hand line, and a line to cast overhead on an 13'6" 7wt spey rod would be a 10 wt single hand line. Now if you want to also do spey casts using a single hand line you may want to up the line weight even more than that and/or carefully choose which SH line. If that is the case then Peter is the perfect person to ask about that. He has some nice blog posts and videos on that subject.

As always the rules above can only get you in the ballpark, and YMMV according to personal tastes, application, and so on.

 

Switch rod ratings can be confusing, so I'll just add that for Loomis PRO-4x switch rods from 4 to 9 wts. the line rating number is for a single hand line cast overhead with one hand. They will most definitely handle heavier lines and many anglers might want to go heavier when casting with two hands. I routinely cast WF-5-F trout lines on my 5 wt. switch (both Spey and overhead) and when casting overhead in Cape Cod, I'm using a 9 wt. Sniper.

 

PM sent with a few questions peter-s-c feel free to share in this thread if you think they are educational!

 

Really enjoyed those videos. I fish the Ganny in Port Hope. My go to rod is a St Croix 11ft7 switch. I fish a Rio switch chucker with a poly leader. It is okay but a bit clunky. I also sometimes fish an airflow rage which I kinda like but do not enjoy the loops running through the guides. I have an airflow 40+ for a single hand 8 wt. Which is great. If I bumped the 40+ up 2 sizes, do you think I could spey cast on the Ganny and other similar sized streams without too much trouble? The Imperial switch is quite fast and powerful. As you are probably aware the Ganny is not A very big river.

 

I've fished the Ganny a few times and the 40+ 2 sizes up will be fine. So put the 9 on your 7 wt. and you're good to go. It comes in floater, fast intermediate, type 3, 5 and 7. The intermediate is a great coldwater line as it slows the presentation down without dragging itself in the rocks. The faster sinkers are better for deeper, faster runs.

Go to the 8:40 mark on this video to see how easy it is to handle the 40+ intermediate. In this case I'm using a 9' 5 wt. PRO4x rod.

 

Thats a very interesting and needed question...when we first introduced switch rods the lack of lines was apparent immediately...there we none...but bing involved with hardy back in those days we had access to the original Hardy Mach One Trout lines and found that these were exceptionally comfortable casting and loved small flies or dries..the ratio was 2-3 sizes up so a 4/5 wt Beulah Classic switch was lined with the #8 mach line and so on...fast forward to now and we still have not dialed in the mid -long belly switch rod lines... the smoothest line we have seen to date is either the Elixir or the Snowbee Switch line..other attempts have not done so well...although a 30' head is not a mid belly or even near it. The light weight Vectors are not bad for the larger weight switch rods,,you might look at Vision...the vibe 125 41' head

 

I am a huge fan of the Wulff TT lnes

 

I recommend for the Trout Spey rods in 2wt-4wt for small soft hackle flies,,, RIO Trout LT lines.

Regards,
FK

 

Love the RIO LT - have it on my 2 and 3 wt single hand rods

 

I use the regular Rio Switch line on my Switch rod and it works well for nymphs.

 

I 2nd the RIO Switch line, not to be confused with the Switch Chucker. This will do what you're asking for very nicely. You can easily nymph 80-90 feet out, if shooting. Much better than Scandi for nymphing and small drys.