Floating Line for New 5wt Legend Elite?

[Hackler]

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?

[sagefisher]

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---

[pillcaster]

I have that rod in a 9' four weight, and I like it with a DT4F, I'm using a SA Supra line now.

[John_N]

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---

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.

[anglerdave]

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.

[whatfly]

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.