Just bought a new 5wt St. Croix Legend Elite and am looking for a floating line to mate with it. Recommendations? Anyone heard of Barrio lines from Scotland?
Just bought a new 5wt St. Croix Legend Elite and am looking for a floating line to mate with it. Recommendations? Anyone heard of Barrio lines from Scotland?
Hackler,
I called St. Croix. They do most of their testing with Scientific Angler Mastery Series. If you want to overline your rod they suggest only going up one size, to 6 wt. Some lines are 1/2 extra and that is also ok.
Personally, I would use the Rio Grand 5 wt since it is designed a half weight heavier, or my favorite the Rio Gold fly line.
Larry ---sagefisher---
I have that rod in a 9' four weight, and I like it with a DT4F, I'm using a SA Supra line now.
"Fishermen are born honest, but they get over it"
Ed Zern
Larry (and Hackler) -
The "old" Rio Grand was my favorite line for years, and I have many of them. I liked them much better than the Mastery GPX from SA, but unfortunately Rio has changed the weighting on the Grands. They used to be a half weight heavier, which was great for faster rods. Now they've changed it to a full line weight heavier, which I think is ridiculous. Obviously, weighting up by a half weight is difficult to do under normal circumstances, making lines like the old-design Grand and the GPX very beneficial. By contrast, going up a full weight is easy to do. While you might need to make some decisions in terms of tapers, if you wanted a 6 weight for your 5 weight, you'd just, gee, let me see, buy a 6 weight line. I fail to see the novel benefit of buying a 5 weight Rio Grand now in order to get the grain weight of a 6 weight, which I can obviously do by any number of other means. When it was the grain weight of a 5 1/2 weight, that was a much different (and better, in my opinion) story. Maybe somebody with knowledge of the logic can convince me otherwise, but I think the new weighting is idiotic.
I also have that rod in a 5wt. I am currently using an older (1/2 wt heavy) Rio Gold wf5f line on it. And really like it. Loads well off the tip for close work and longer casts as well. I would also think a SA GPX would also work well. Or perhaps the new Frequency from SA.
" If a man is truly blessed, he returns home from fishing to the best catch of his life." Christopher Armour
Is there any reason to believe that for some bizarre reason the St. Croix Legend Elite is fundamentally different than every other 5# on the market? If not, just get your favorite Rio, Airflo, Orvis, SA, etc. Hopefully you can find one on sale. Never heard of the Barrio line, but there are a bunch of small operations buying off shore lines these days. I still personally prefer the known quality of the big brands, but typically wait until they change their packaging before picking up a new one on sale. Lines are so good these days, it is not rocket science to match them to a rod.