MidCurrent Tested and Trusted: Rio Gold Line

Images by Kubie Brown

As a fly fishing guide, the number one question I get asked by clients (besides “are we actually going to catch anything today?”) is “how often should I change my fly line?” The answer is—it depends on how often you fish.

Even a weekend warrior who only gets out once or twice a season will need to change out their fly line every couple of years. However, for someone like me who fishes nearly every day from spring to fall and even goes out a few days in the winter, I’ve got to swap out my fly lines once or sometimes twice a year… or at least I used to.

Over the years I’ve tried dozens of different fly lines with hardly one of them lasting an entire season. During the weeks of hard fishing, every fly line I tried gets dinged up and nicked by trees and branches or stretched by snagged rocks and big fish. Worst of all, many of my dry fly lines will lose their buoyancy and start to sink. I’d honestly given up looking for a perfect line and had contented myself with having to swap out fly lines on all my reels every year, that is until I strung one up with Rio Gold. Now I won’t use anything else.

Tougher Than Woodpecker Lips

When I first used Rio Gold, I was used to fly lines cracking and getting cuts and scratched until they were so haggard they would practically fall off the reel. However, Rio Gold’s durable SlickCast coating made from high quality PVC, means that I could practically drag it through a briar patch, and it would still hold up. The little nicks and splits in the coating you find on most fly lines after a few months of hard use simply don’t show up. This means that there’s nothing to catch on the edge of your guides when you’re casting and nothing to slow you down. In addition, the outer coating lasts forever which means that the line will float like a cork for as long as you can fish it.

Another fantastic thing about Rio Gold is that it’s low stretch. Usually, after being snagged up a few times or getting tangled up in branches and rocks, fly lines begin to stretch out. These stretched lines will start to loop up when your casting them and basically get tangled on a whim. Eventually these strained lines can even lose their weight forward balance, meaning that they cast like a length of dental floss. However, Rio Gold just doesn’t stretch. It holds its form and its shape for as long as you use it, never becoming a flaccid, loopy, tangled mess.

Smoother Than a Baby’s Butt

The other thing about the Rio Gold’s SlickCast coating is its smoothness. Many high end fly lines are textured, allowing increased friction to create speed so that casting the line sounds like you’re starting a chainsaw. Rio Gold doesn’t have this texture, making it as soft and quiet as the river itself and perfect for those days when you just need a peaceful day on the water and don’t want a textured fly line buzzing around your head like an angry bee.

The smoothness of Rio Gold also extends well past the sound of the line and into the casting itself. It slides through the guides easily and gently, making it an absolute pleasure to cast and the perfect line for sending out gentle loops over daintily rising trout or, as I prefer, for splashing down big foam flies on the edges of cover.

Faster Than a Speeding Bullet

Now I’m all for pretty, tight loops and slow graceful casts, but when I’m really fishing, I like to fish fast. I want a line that I can load quick so I can zip flies into targets like bullets and Rio Gold is absolutely perfect for that type of fishing. With it’s long belly and sharp taper that ends with a heavy front loading shooting head, the Rio Gold line is speedier on the fly than Clint Eastwood’s draw in a Fistful of Dollars. It’s the perfect line for quickly casting small dries to rising trout or for target shooting into sweet spots along the banks with big attractor patterns along the banks.

Between its durability, smooth casting, and fast speed, Rio Gold may actually be the perfect fly line. No matter how often you fish or how often you’ve got to change your fly line, once you use Rio Gold, you’re going to want to make it last.