SA Textured Titan and Rio Outbound Short Fly Lines

SA Titan Taper

I want to talk briefly about a couple of shooting head lines that I used out on the Columbia River the other day. First, these lines are not for light presentation fishing. They have “shooting tapers” which makes them relatively short (30-35 feet) with a lot of weight up front. They have a very short front taper and a short back taper - making these lines ideal for casting large, weighted flies with a limited amount of back casting.

Typical scenarios for these lines would be:

-Fishing streamers for trout – either from a boat, or from land, especially when there is limited back casting room.

-Casting poppers or heavily weighted streamers for bass

-Saltwater mangrove fishing with heavy flies

-Coastal Striper and Blufish

-Swinging steelhead flies in tight casting quarters

-Casting to Coho and Chum Salmon in the salt or on the river





SA Titan

The first line that I used was the Scientific Anglers Textured Titan. This is a textured line, so it is heavily dimpled which helps to decrease surface area through the guides on the cast. For those of you who have ever used the Sharkskin, the textured series is a lot friendlier on your fingers and makes a bit less noise while casting.

I had a 9 foot 7 weight Loomis NRX, lined with a 7 weight Titan. The surface popper I was using was fairly large, around 3-4 inches in length. Not an easy bug to cast typically. What I found was that for extremely short casts, like a quick pick up and lay down at 25 feet or so, this line performed ok. However, once I wanted more than 25 feet, this line is amazing. It sails! Adding more line with just one or two back casts I was bewildered at how well this line carried. It just  kept on going – wanted more- which meant I had to let up a bit so as not to overshoot the target. So for huge distance with very limited back casting, the Titan is it.

Outbound Short



Rio Outbound Short Fly Line

On the other hand, the Rio Outbound Short seemed to unfurl with more power under 30 feet. We had a 7 weight Outbound Short lined up on an older Sage Small Mouth fly rod (290 grain). I was fishing 9 feet of leader with a Clouser Minnow. Again, in tight, I was able to lay it all out on target very well. Between 30 and 40 feet, this line continued to lay out beautifully with tight, powerful loops. However, for the longer casts it didn’t seem to carry as well as the Titan. It’s a bullet, but for maximum distance, I would recommend the Titan or the Standard Rio Outbound.

Have a good time,