Winston Spey Rods

Skagit, Scandi, Long Belly, Short Belly, Shooting Head...., comes down to it there isn't a perfect spey line that will fit every fishing situation encountered on every river.  Even if there were such a thing, given what human nature amounts too, it wouldn't fit everyone's personality.  There will always be room for experimentation.  It is fun to take pieces from different fly lines and put them together just to see what effects you can get.  Most often, you will find that factory lines are well thought out and will out perform the

average fly caster in most situations.  However lines can be tuned to fit special rods for use in special situations, and sometime you just get lucky.  Where I camped the last ten days, gusts of over 30+ mph buffeted us from every direction 6 of the10 evenings.  Short heads and fine running lines give an edge over any other configuration of line during howling winds.  The first two evenings I used a Rio Skagit Floating Spey Line on my Winston B2X78133.  It was good enough to allow me to stick five steelies in the two sessions. This line has a 45' head that weighs 600 grains.  I found if I fished a double fly rig with a Tail Gunner in the middle of my leader, I cast better.  The extra fly gave me more grab in the anchor to store energy to throw against the wind.  Later in the week I switched to a Airflo Northwest Skagit Head fastened to the end of some GuideLine Shooter hollow mono shooting line.  To the business end of this head was attached the prescribed 9-feet of Super-Extra-Fast Sinking Airflo sinking line.   The Shooter was straightened in 1-yard sections as it came off the reel. It became remarkably trouble free in a short while. Various flies were fished at depth. The water was covered with both broadside and quartering downstream casts.  The water available ranged from 4 to 8-feet and was more than 100-feet wide.  I came to the conclusion that a longer tip was need, about the same time as my two fishing partners ran out of gas.  No fish were hooked, and I was only moderately  impressed with the performance of the line I had used, and had the feeling that if we had stayed, I could have come up with something that would have produced fish.  That evening the wind returned.  A Rio AquaLux tip from an 8/9/10 WindCutter replaced the 9' sinking tip.  This resulted in a 47' head of 595 grains. A hand tied 6' leader and single size-4 fly completed the terminal tackle.  The effect was astonishing.  The Airflo line is denser than the head on the Rio line, therefore it rides lower in the water than the Rio.  The extra density aides line velocity.  The dense AquaLux tip turns over steadily, but not as quickly as did the shorter sinking tip.  When cast, this combination of densities and tapers stays in the loop for a long distance before straightening out and losing energy.  This enables the head to stay in a very compact package longer to optimize long distance casting.   This concentrated mass also slips through the wind more easily than lines that turn over quicker.  Coupled to the tangle-free GuideLine Shooter, this head allowed me to fish at distances unobtainable with any other fly tackle I have ever used.  It got me three hook-ups one morning. Also, because of the turn-over characteristics of the head, this line is also a smooth/precise performer at close and moderate distances.
There is an ever increasing tendency to mix and match parts of lines made by different companies.  This is particularly true of the more sophisticated, professional spey rod guides.  The spey fishing community is made up with a high percentage of "fly line experimenters".  It's easier now than ever to create your own special line, because there are so many sections fly lines that have loops in strategic places.  All you have to do is loop pieces together.  If you don't like the results, just un-loop the pieces and replace them with something else.  From my perspective, the greatest improvements are needed in building shooting lines that avoid tangles.  Nothing is more discouraging that executing the perfect cast, only to have the shooting line ball-up and jam into the first stripping guide.  There have been two huge improvements in shooting lines recently.  They are the aforementioned GuideLine Shooter and Airflo's Miracle Braid.  They are both so good, I haven't been able to figure out which is the best.  Rio's Cheaters and Tips are indispensable for customizing spey lines.  Cheaters are five and ten foot sections of line that are looped at each end.  They are designed to adjust the belly length of  Rio WindCutter and Skagit Spey lines. Because they come as a set with two different lengths and two different densities, Cheaters allow you to easily change the length and overall density of any line easily.  Rio's density-compensated, color-coded, looped, 15-foot, Sinking Tips come in seven sizes and four sink rates as ready to go items.  If that is not enough there is also T-14 that can be cut to any length.
Andre Scholz lives in Germany, but he has become R.L. Winston's Spey guru.  He has made a name for himself in Germany and Scandinavia as a Two Handed Casting Instructor.  His exceptionally smooth, almost effortless casting and detailed knowledge of the sport have brought scores of students to his European casting clinics.  He uses Scandinavian Style Shooting Heads which are much lighter in weight than the lines we have discussed so far in the article.  He is able to generate incredible line speed with his technique.  Here are his recommendations:
13'3" 7/8       447-478 grains
13' 8/9         493-524 grains
14' 8/9         524-555 grains
15' 9/10        601-632 grains
One of the things you will notice about B2X spey rods is that they can be fished comfortably with a lot of different fly lines.