Posted on September 17 2015
Western Alaska is far from the traditionalist’s view of trout fishing. It is not the land of four weights, fine tippets, and microscopic dry flies. Instead, bushy mouse patterns, heavily weighted streamers, and clunky flesh and egg rigs are the norm.. None of which are particularly easy to cast.
Most trout specific fly lines are not designed with such heavy rigs in mind, and often perform that way. That’s why we were pretty excited to get our paws on Airflo’s Super-Dri Nymph/Indicator line; a trout line specifically designed to throw heavy junk.
We put it to the test this summer, so today we thought we’d tell you about it.
Design
Airflo’s Super-Dri Nymph/Indicator line is a full floating, weight-forward, freshwater line available in line sizes 4 through 8 weight.
It has a pretty long head of 49.5 feet, but has a really short front taper of 3 feet. The front taper of a fly line plays a big part on how the line turns over. Short front tapers allow more energy to be transferred from the fly line to the leader. More energy in the leader means more energy left to kick over big flies, and that’s just what this line does.
According to Airflo, the line also has a larger than average tip diameter which is said to help turnover heavy rigs as well. We’re not really sure how that works exactly, but after seeing the line in action, let’s just say we’ll take their word for it.
Performance and Versatility
We started out by fishing the 7 weight Nymph/Indicator line on the Sage 790-4 ONE and found the line to perform just as advertised. It had no problem turning over just about anything we threw on it, from the most wind-resistant mouse flies we had to flesh and egg rigs weighted with up to size 7 split shot.
What we were really surprised at however was how well it performed at longer distances. The longer head allowed for more line to be carried in the air, while the aggressive front taper still allowed us to turn over big flies at distances further than we would have expected. That’s a pretty deadly combination.
We also fished it for more weary trout with unweighted flies in skinny back channels, and while we might not recommend it for the spookiest trout out there, we found that in the right hands, the fly landed plenty soft enough for any trout on our river.
Other Cool Features
The good folks at Airflo appeared to have dumped just about every piece of technology they have into the Nymph/Indicator line. There are a bunch of really cool features, but some of the ones that stuck out most to us were as follows.
- Ridges. The Nymph/Indicator line is a ridged line, meaning it has ridges that run along the length of the line for better handling and shootability. We’ve been a fan of Airflo’s ridge lines in the saltwater world for a while, such as the Bonefish Ridge Line or the Ridge Tropical Clear Tip, so we weren’t too surprised that we liked it on a freshwater line as well.
- Super-Dri. The line features Airflo’s new ‘Super-Dri technology,’ which from what we can tell, does actually seem to make a difference. The line floated exceptionally well, which is particularly nice when nymphing.
- PVC-Free. Like all Airflo lines, the Nymph/Indicator line is made out of Polyurethane instead of PVC like most other fly lines. A big advantage of Polyurethane is that it doesn’t break down in the presence of things like DEET or prolonged sunlight.. Two things we have plenty of in Alaska. In fact, we left the line rigged up outside in the sun, for our entire season at Alaska West, and it still showed no obvious signs of wear.
Conclusion
We really, really liked Airflo’s Super-Dri Nymph/Indicator line. So much so that we actually outfitted our entire fleet of loaner rods at Alaska West with them! Although it might be marketed as a ‘nymphing’ line, we think it’s the ideal ‘all around’ fly line for Alaskan trout, and would highly recommend it to anyone planning a trip to Alaska.
For more information, check it out at Airflo’s website, here, or visit your nearest fly shop.
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