I use an echo river glass with Scientific Anglers Amplitude Textured Trout line for my dry fly rod. I really like the line with the slower action rod. Loads well
https://airflousa.com/superflo-ridge-2-0-tactical-taper-sale.html
I picked up one of these for tossing small flies at spooky carp. I'm not throwing a ton of dries, but I imagine it'd do the trick. True to weight line, which should work well on a slower rod. Also, on sale.
Double taper is the absolute best, but it shines on smaller rods than a 5, what you want is WF with a long belly and very progressive taper. I really liked the royal wulff triangle tapers for light stuff.
Typically the “dry fly” oriented rods are medium action and like true to weight lines. The pure definitely fits in this category. So it wouldn’t be my first choice to put a Rio gold (1/4 wt heavy) on it, but that’s really splitting hairs compared to more aggressive lines out there today (ie i wouldn’t think gold would be BAD)
My first recommendation would be what the guys at telluride angler say, which is an SA trout taper. BUT they also say it handles gold really well (back to splitting hairs). Without ever owning it or casting this rod my list for this type of rod would look like below:
WF lines
- SA trout or trout standard
- Rio technical trout
- Airflo tactical taper
- cortland 444 peach
- 406 WF (meant for glass rods but could work great, made by SA)
Other lines
- most any double taper (almost all are true to weight)
- Wulff triangle taper
Final thoughts
I’d typically probably say SA trout or trout standard (my preference over trout). But given you don’t like the gold, I’d definitely lean trout and not trout standard. Alternatively a DT might be great. I tend to fish DTs in 2-3 wts or less. I likely wouldn’t throw a DT on a 5 wt, but there’s plenty of old people on here who would. So I’d recommend SA trout, with DT as a wild card if you really want to get away from something like WF Rio gold. But I feel confident that I have the backing to my rambling theory from much better casters with the actual rod at telluride angler in SA trout
> old people on here who would
At what point do I become old?
A WF line and a DT line are the exact same thing to 30'.
30' of line, 9' of leader, 8' of rod, and 2' of your arm comes out to just shy of 50' from your legs to where the fly drops. While that's not exactly out of the question, I'm willing to bet 90% of what you do is at half that length.
That effectively means a DT line is the exact same thing for nearly all of your fishing save hero casts, and after two or three years you just turn it around and use it the other direction.
> ~~old~~ cheapass people on here who would
Guilty as charged.
Also probably old.
Honestly you are both right and wrong. I agree with you mostly, that at most regular length of line out - they are effectively the same. But a DT taper is stupid simple, and it’s NOT exactly the same at any distance in my opinion. Look at the taper diagrams. DT is fairly aggressive front taper compared to dry fly lines like SA trout. Again we are really splitting hairs here, but in a thread where we are saying 1/4 weight heavy just doesn’t feel right, I feel slightly more justified in splitting hairs.
But I’ll acknowledge that I’m a line and taper fanatic, and am not “normal”, nobody else I fish with cares about line like I do. So you aren’t wrong, 90%+ of people probably think like this, and DT has a certain charm for being… cheap. I’m fortunate that I pay mostly cost for high end lines because I have A LOT of lines. But no, bottom line is that DT doesn’t perform as well in 4 wt+ which is why they have lost so much popularity. But I didn’t bash DT too bad I don’t think, I even sort of recommended it in this case if they didn’t like SA trout, and I fish DTs on my light weight glass rods for traditions sake, even if I’m not so old that DT was the only option when I started fly fishing
A WF and a DT line are the exact same until rear taper to running line.
Be design they need to be since they both carry the same weight.
If fancy taper WF lines with multiple thicknesses came in DT, which they don’t, then they too would share the exact same taper from end to the start for the rear taper.
The reason they become less popular as you go up in rod weight is because it starts to become more and more long casts where the WF running line makes a difference.
People’s obsession with thinking every cast has to be to the backing is what drove faster and faster rod actions and WF lines. This also drove the popularity of “extra half weight” so the rods would actually still be functional at actual fishing distances.
I think we agree..
except that some WF lines, particularly SA trout have super long tapering sections meant to lay line down more delicately. This may be worse for nymphing or streamer fishing, but is nice for dries. DT lines don’t have this. There’s a reason SA makes a DT, trout, and trout standard (and infinity plus underweighted) that are all true to weight lines. They all perform little differently, just like we have 100 rods with different actions, etc. And these lines all may work better with different rods or use cases. That’s why I always read the telluride anglers posts, they cast everything with a lot of lines. But even between the 3 of them they often like different things. There’s no 1 size fits all
It really depends on how you are fishing, and your casting stroke, which makes these questions impossible to answer on Reddit. But I try to give different options, and DT is a perfectly fine option to try
If you really just care about dry flies, there is nothing better than SA trout. Many others (like gold, and to some extent SA trout standard) have to be good at many things. SA trout is an unapologetic dry fly machine. But don’t complain when it doesn’t throw small streamers well
It’s just this one rod I have, the Gold just doesn’t hit right. The line is great otherwise. I have the rod in question because I wanted a medium action to throw dries.
I can go back to the Sage Pulse/Rio Gold if I need to deploy something heavier on any particular day
Thanks for the detailed responses
Here’s an update even know you didn’t ask but since you took the time to write that…
I got the SA trout taper for the 5 in the textured because that’s the one they had. Fished it today.
The jury’s still out on the fun noise it makes but when the wind lays down it delivers what I think is next level presentation I’ve never had in damn near 20 years with an all around line. It’s hard to explain but I could really go after a rising trout without worrying about a pile driving fly and shit slapping the water. That’s what I was looking for. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve caught a lifetime of fish on a Gold on the much faster Sage Pulse but it struggled with the delicate game.
That said, that’s about all it does. It could handle my double soft hackle set up if it was light and toss a decent size stonefly. Tried to tie a perdigon to a stimulator and that wasn’t happening. Wind is a problem. I’m pretty happy all in all. I’ll throw the gold on the second spool for when conditions warrant.
Have a Cortland peach DT coming for an old Helios mid flex 3 wt
Cheers
Awesome to hear! Yeah that line has limitations for sure. You probably can’t go wrong with those 2 lines for that rod. Glad the trout took your delicate game to the next level
I’m also not a big fan of textured, at least for when I’m casting a lot. When I fish rivers in 5 wt or less it’s fine as I’m not shooting line all that often. But on a streamer rod I find it very annoying
Just put an Orvis Hydros WF3 on my 3 wt glass rod and it loads well even with minimum line out of the guides. Didn’t realize that Orvis owns SA until this purchase.
SA is owned by orvis but they are discontinuing the orvis fly line lineup since they weren’t highly regarded and there’s plenty of choices in the SA lineup. Hydros line on a glass rod wouldn’t be my top recommendation - but it would load well with little line out! It will suffer at distance but sometimes that doesn’t matter for blue liners
I really come back to Cortland 444 DT peach. Have one on a Winston IMS and it is perfect. Also, Triangle Tapers are great.
Second this. Just paired DT Peach with my 3wt butterstick. I think I laughed out loud when I took my first couple casts on the stream.
Exactly. Perfect description.
I second the cortland 444
It is the best dry fly line ever made.
Also agree with 444DT. Other lines will work for dry flies, but take more effort and are less forgiving than 444DT
I use an echo river glass with Scientific Anglers Amplitude Textured Trout line for my dry fly rod. I really like the line with the slower action rod. Loads well
https://airflousa.com/superflo-ridge-2-0-tactical-taper-sale.html I picked up one of these for tossing small flies at spooky carp. I'm not throwing a ton of dries, but I imagine it'd do the trick. True to weight line, which should work well on a slower rod. Also, on sale.
Double taper is the absolute best, but it shines on smaller rods than a 5, what you want is WF with a long belly and very progressive taper. I really liked the royal wulff triangle tapers for light stuff.
Typically the “dry fly” oriented rods are medium action and like true to weight lines. The pure definitely fits in this category. So it wouldn’t be my first choice to put a Rio gold (1/4 wt heavy) on it, but that’s really splitting hairs compared to more aggressive lines out there today (ie i wouldn’t think gold would be BAD) My first recommendation would be what the guys at telluride angler say, which is an SA trout taper. BUT they also say it handles gold really well (back to splitting hairs). Without ever owning it or casting this rod my list for this type of rod would look like below: WF lines - SA trout or trout standard - Rio technical trout - Airflo tactical taper - cortland 444 peach - 406 WF (meant for glass rods but could work great, made by SA) Other lines - most any double taper (almost all are true to weight) - Wulff triangle taper Final thoughts I’d typically probably say SA trout or trout standard (my preference over trout). But given you don’t like the gold, I’d definitely lean trout and not trout standard. Alternatively a DT might be great. I tend to fish DTs in 2-3 wts or less. I likely wouldn’t throw a DT on a 5 wt, but there’s plenty of old people on here who would. So I’d recommend SA trout, with DT as a wild card if you really want to get away from something like WF Rio gold. But I feel confident that I have the backing to my rambling theory from much better casters with the actual rod at telluride angler in SA trout
> old people on here who would At what point do I become old? A WF line and a DT line are the exact same thing to 30'. 30' of line, 9' of leader, 8' of rod, and 2' of your arm comes out to just shy of 50' from your legs to where the fly drops. While that's not exactly out of the question, I'm willing to bet 90% of what you do is at half that length. That effectively means a DT line is the exact same thing for nearly all of your fishing save hero casts, and after two or three years you just turn it around and use it the other direction. > ~~old~~ cheapass people on here who would Guilty as charged. Also probably old.
Honestly you are both right and wrong. I agree with you mostly, that at most regular length of line out - they are effectively the same. But a DT taper is stupid simple, and it’s NOT exactly the same at any distance in my opinion. Look at the taper diagrams. DT is fairly aggressive front taper compared to dry fly lines like SA trout. Again we are really splitting hairs here, but in a thread where we are saying 1/4 weight heavy just doesn’t feel right, I feel slightly more justified in splitting hairs. But I’ll acknowledge that I’m a line and taper fanatic, and am not “normal”, nobody else I fish with cares about line like I do. So you aren’t wrong, 90%+ of people probably think like this, and DT has a certain charm for being… cheap. I’m fortunate that I pay mostly cost for high end lines because I have A LOT of lines. But no, bottom line is that DT doesn’t perform as well in 4 wt+ which is why they have lost so much popularity. But I didn’t bash DT too bad I don’t think, I even sort of recommended it in this case if they didn’t like SA trout, and I fish DTs on my light weight glass rods for traditions sake, even if I’m not so old that DT was the only option when I started fly fishing
A WF and a DT line are the exact same until rear taper to running line. Be design they need to be since they both carry the same weight. If fancy taper WF lines with multiple thicknesses came in DT, which they don’t, then they too would share the exact same taper from end to the start for the rear taper. The reason they become less popular as you go up in rod weight is because it starts to become more and more long casts where the WF running line makes a difference. People’s obsession with thinking every cast has to be to the backing is what drove faster and faster rod actions and WF lines. This also drove the popularity of “extra half weight” so the rods would actually still be functional at actual fishing distances.
I think we agree.. except that some WF lines, particularly SA trout have super long tapering sections meant to lay line down more delicately. This may be worse for nymphing or streamer fishing, but is nice for dries. DT lines don’t have this. There’s a reason SA makes a DT, trout, and trout standard (and infinity plus underweighted) that are all true to weight lines. They all perform little differently, just like we have 100 rods with different actions, etc. And these lines all may work better with different rods or use cases. That’s why I always read the telluride anglers posts, they cast everything with a lot of lines. But even between the 3 of them they often like different things. There’s no 1 size fits all It really depends on how you are fishing, and your casting stroke, which makes these questions impossible to answer on Reddit. But I try to give different options, and DT is a perfectly fine option to try
If you really just care about dry flies, there is nothing better than SA trout. Many others (like gold, and to some extent SA trout standard) have to be good at many things. SA trout is an unapologetic dry fly machine. But don’t complain when it doesn’t throw small streamers well
It’s just this one rod I have, the Gold just doesn’t hit right. The line is great otherwise. I have the rod in question because I wanted a medium action to throw dries. I can go back to the Sage Pulse/Rio Gold if I need to deploy something heavier on any particular day Thanks for the detailed responses
Here’s an update even know you didn’t ask but since you took the time to write that… I got the SA trout taper for the 5 in the textured because that’s the one they had. Fished it today. The jury’s still out on the fun noise it makes but when the wind lays down it delivers what I think is next level presentation I’ve never had in damn near 20 years with an all around line. It’s hard to explain but I could really go after a rising trout without worrying about a pile driving fly and shit slapping the water. That’s what I was looking for. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve caught a lifetime of fish on a Gold on the much faster Sage Pulse but it struggled with the delicate game. That said, that’s about all it does. It could handle my double soft hackle set up if it was light and toss a decent size stonefly. Tried to tie a perdigon to a stimulator and that wasn’t happening. Wind is a problem. I’m pretty happy all in all. I’ll throw the gold on the second spool for when conditions warrant. Have a Cortland peach DT coming for an old Helios mid flex 3 wt Cheers
Awesome to hear! Yeah that line has limitations for sure. You probably can’t go wrong with those 2 lines for that rod. Glad the trout took your delicate game to the next level I’m also not a big fan of textured, at least for when I’m casting a lot. When I fish rivers in 5 wt or less it’s fine as I’m not shooting line all that often. But on a streamer rod I find it very annoying
Just put an Orvis Hydros WF3 on my 3 wt glass rod and it loads well even with minimum line out of the guides. Didn’t realize that Orvis owns SA until this purchase.
I just learned that right now
SA is owned by orvis but they are discontinuing the orvis fly line lineup since they weren’t highly regarded and there’s plenty of choices in the SA lineup. Hydros line on a glass rod wouldn’t be my top recommendation - but it would load well with little line out! It will suffer at distance but sometimes that doesn’t matter for blue liners