Winston Spey Rods

Winston Spey Rods in-stock, no sales tax - $50 orders ship free in USA.

After extensive testing, our shop people feel the Rio Skagit Floater is the best floating fly line choice, for the Winston BIIX Spey Series fly rod action. 

FREE DVD
Included with every new Winston BIIX Spey rod we sell, is an instructional
DVD by noted German Spey caster Andre Scholz.

Length: 13' 3"       Line: #7/8     Pieces: 4   

Length: 13'       Line: #8/9     Pieces: 4   

Length: 14'       Line: #8/9     Pieces: 4   

Length: 15'       Line: #9/10     Pieces: 4   

The big river had finally dropped back into shape, after being in flood for nearly two weeks. Josh Linn rowed his big pontoon boat through a narrow slot, around a sharp corner, then expertly turned the craft with a flick of an oar and brought it to an abrupt silent stop against the willows.  I quietly slid from the bow into the belt deep water. The footing was solid cobble, the water dead calm.  Two rod lengths in front of me the texture of the surface changed from slick to riffled.  The riffles slowly gained in size and speed as they moved away from me, toward the middle of the river. A 3-inch black and blue cone-head tube fly was fixed to the business end of my short, stout leader.  This in turn was attached to the end of a 15-foot long sinking tip.  My fly was parked an arms length

up the rod, with the hook stuck in a snake guide.  The line made a turn around the foot of the reel.  When I plucked the hook from the guide, the loop to loop connection between the floating Skagit head and the sinking tip was about one foot out side the rod tip; the perfect length of line for my first cast.  That first cast landed dead straight across the gentle current.  I extended the next cast 4-feet, and the next another 4-feet, etc.  Each extension of the cast dropped fly into faster water.  During each presentation, the fly sunk and swam deep and slow and broad-side to the current.  I think it was about the ninth cast when the line suddenly tightened.  The 7-8 pound hatchery steelhead buck was very energetic and sporting. We barbequed him the next weekend at the Tube Fly Round Table at the Shop.

Granted, there's nothing new or surprising about the story so far.  It was January 3rd in the Willamette Valley in Oregon.  There are always a few chromers in the local river in January and it certainly wasn't the first one caught on a fly. 

The only unique thing about the story was that the water temperature was 37-degrees and the rod in my hand was the same one I had fallen in love with on the Deschutes last September when the water was 62-degrees.  The rod was my thirteen-three, seven-eight, bee-too-ex; commonly referred to as a Winston B2X78133.  This was my third trip of the winter and each trip this rod had proven to be the best tool for a large number of situations even though most two-handers used in winter are longer and heavier. Granted, I still pack a couple of 14'-15' 9-weight in the boat for longer range situations, but the smaller rod covers the water fine out to 70', even with large winter flies.  Currently my B2X78133 is rigged with a Rio Skagit-450, 5' floating cheater and stock type-six, 9-weight Rio sinking tip. This line is very enjoyable and it seems that the new Rio Spey lines have a slicker, better casting shooting line.  The way you can tell the difference is that the newest editions have a green spot at the rear of the line instead of a running line that is all green. A Nautilus #12 reel balances this outfit perfectly.  There is more information about lines for the B2X78133 in the article below.

When Winston initially introduced their new line of B2X Spey rods in 2005 there was a favorable reception in the market place, but no big stir.  They were different, maybe too different for the average caster to appreciate.  They were too powerful for their weight, they recovered so fast it was hard for the average guy to feel the "kick" as the rod unloaded, therefore a little hard for the average guy to time.  I know because even though I get lots of time on the water, it's sometimes hard to adapt to a new rod/line setup. My initial interest was the 8914 model because that's a rod size that fits our fishery very well. Brian Silvey and I experimented with WindCutter fly lines and came to the conclusion

that if we over-lined the rod one size, it loaded down into the butt and delivered real power. At the last Sandy River Spey Clave, I got to cast this same rod with Andre Scholz, Winston's Spey Pro.  Andre prefers a Scandinavian Shooting head system with a much shorter and lighter head and loading the rod off the tip.  The results were blazing, narrow, pretty loops.  Incorporated into Andres system were Poly Leaders and and extremely long tippets.  This kind of set up will present small flies with maximum delicacy and stealth, great for Atlantic Salmon and east-side summer steelhead.  Marty Sheppard Talked about using a 550 Skagit with a 5-foot Cheater and a standard Rio fast sinking tip on this same Winston rod.  He said it was the easiest outfit for his customers to learn to cast and fish with.  That caught my attention, because there ain't nuthin' the matter with easy.  He was right!  It is an easy outfit to fish the rivers on the west side where we use larger flies fished deep.  My wife Patty used this comfortable outfit the last two trips we fished together.  I Mostly fished a 13' 3" 7/8 Winston with a 450 Skagit, using a 5-foot cheater and standard tip.  I could cover all the water I wanted too with this lighter weight outfit, even when fishing with larger tub flies.  Then I tried the new 15' 9/10 weight cannon with a 650 Skagit.  Wow!  The limitation on distance was keeping the shooting line from tangling.  This is the new big water tamer.  Might be interesting to see someone use one of these rods at Spey-O-Rama.