Rio Gold

[vanven]

For my birthday I managed to talk my wife out of the ordinary work shirts birthday gift and into some new fly line. I picked up a spool of the new Rio Gold and had the great folks over at K&K Flyfishers spool it up for me.

From a layman's perspective....

My Battenkill Mid Arbor 3 had been spooled with Orvis Wonderline from the first day I bought it 2 years ago. It was free afterall and I didn’t know the difference. It was a considerable step up from the Cabela’s rod/reel/line combo I had been fishing previously. I never disliked the Orvis line but had issues keeping it buoyant and never really felt great about my casting. I constantly had issues shooting line. The Orvis line always had a sticky feeling even after I treated it with lubricants.

The new Rio Gold has proved to be a night and day difference. The line is very slick and shoots like a dream. I really had to work to shoot line with the old setup, but even on shorter casts this new line wants to jump out of the rod. I have added significant distance to my casts with less effort. I actually find myself trying to prevent it from shooting at times. The biggest difference is at night. I can make much longer casts with less initial line out because of the Rio Gold's willingness to shoot. The line was also much easier to roll cast into the wind.

The line is two tone. The head of the line is a dull green color and as you get into the taper it transitions to a bright orange color. I realize this probably has a small impact on its ability to catch fish but I like the color scheme for a few simple reasons. It never made much sense to me to toss a neon yellow fly line at one of the spookiest game fish around. The fish have to be able to see the line and a drab green has to be better than glowing yellow. The color scheme also helped me fish at night. I could look at the reel or the line and know exactly how much line I had out. I realize you can also do this by feeling the thickness of the line in your hands, but the visual reassurance was helpful for me.

Overall the line isn’t exactly cheap at around $65 retail. I can’t comment on the lines durability or willingness to shed dirt and float after extended use. I can say that so far it has made a significant impact on my fishing and the enjoyment I get out of the sport. So far I would gladly recommend this line to anyone.

-Jerod

[Kansas Fly Fisher]

Jerod,

Thanks for the report. I may have to look into this new line.

John

[3wt]

As far as I'm concerned, all other line, leader and tippet manufacturers can disappear, and I would be fine if RIO was still around.