MidCurrent Tested and Trusted: Orvis Bankshot Fly Line

Dry fly fishing and nymphing are almost related in that they are both beautiful and productive art forms that require delicacy and grace. Streamer fishing stands out like a hard-drinking, bar brawling cousin. It’s a fishing method that requires anglers to splash down their flies and then to slash, rip, and jerk them around to make a trout strike with a presentation far from graceful.

A good streamer angler must have the right equipment for the job. It requires a menagerie of large and heavy flies, stiffer rods for throwing them, and perhaps most importantly—the right line. This can be tough, as there are a ton of streamer lines out there with a variety of different benefits and problems. Some lines are too heavy or unbalanced, which at the end of a long day of casting makes your shoulder feel like you pitched nine innings in the Major Leagues. Other lines are well-balanced and easy to cast but when you’re using big flies, they fly about as a well as a wounded pheasant.

As a complete streamer junkie, I went through a multitude of streamer lines with varying results. But when I came across the Orvis Bankshot Line, I was truly impressed.

Big Line for Big Bugs

Orvis Bankshot lines are perhaps the happiest mistake ever created by the renowned fly fishing company. Originally designed as a single-hand Spey line, Orvis soon discovered that they had created perhaps the best all-around streamer line on the market. Designed with a short, two-sizes-to big shooting head, the Bankshot line will turn over even the largest streamer as quickly and easily as a line-cook flipping a pancake.

What’s more is that the weight of the line makes such efforts, well, effortless. The heavy shooting head of the Bankshot easily lifts heavy flies out of deep water while also overloading your rod on the back cast. This means that you can cast big flies all day with the Bankshot and can come off the water feeling like a million bucks instead of feeling like your shoulder is full of broken glass. With the addition of the 10-foot sink tip, which has a 7-inch per second sink rate, the Orvis Bankshot is perfect line for chucking big streamers and working deep water all day long without tiring yourself out.

Fast, Accurate, and Versatile

Speed and accuracy are critical for a good streamer line and the Orvis Bankshot has both in spades. The line is coated with Orvis’s AST dry slick technology, which makes the line slicker than frozen rock-snot. This means you can gain a lot of line-speed very quickly, negating the need for constant hauling, to keep your streamers in the water more.

Accuracy is part of the Orvis Bankshot package, too. As an angler that likes to get his flies into the shit—flipping under logs, dropping between boulders, and sinking them along undercut banks—I value accurate lines above all else. The shooting head on the Bankshot is perfect for weaving my flies into those hairy-looking spots where big trout like to hide and where I’d otherwise end up snagging up and breaking off my streamer in frustration.

The versatility of the Bankshot line is another one of its best features. With the short shooting head easily overloading your rod, you can cast both small and large streamers without changing your casting stroke at all. You can also use the line as it was originally intended—a single-hand Spey line. Whether you’re trying to swing some small stuff on a tiny creek with a lot of dense, bankside brush or want to show off a bit by turning over a big heavy streamer with a roll cast, Bankshot line will do everything you need it to do without a back cast.

Less Work for More Pay

Streamer fishing is hard work. It requires a lot of long hours on the water with a lot of labor-intensive casting and stripping. In short, you’ve got to earn it. So any tool that can make your work on the water easier is a blessing. The Orvis Bankshot line is that and then some. It’s a line that gives you the assurance of knowing that, no matter how rough it gets out there in the streamer world, you’ll always be able to stay in the fight and get in one more cast.