Gorge Fly Shop Weekly Fishing Report December 29th

05.30 in 29th, Boat Plans, december, fishing, fly, flyvines, from, gorge, new, perfect, plus, report, shop, stocking, stuffer, the, weekly

Gorge Fly Shop Weekly Fishing Report

"Fly Fish the World with Us"

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FlyVines The Perfect Stocking Stuffer Plus NEW from FLYVINES

10.12 in Boat Plans, fishing, flyvines, from, line, new, perfect, plus, redington, rod, start, stocking, stuffer, the, up, your

*Pet not included

Flyvines are an innovative and unique solution to fly fishing’s chief environmental hindrance: fly line. Based out of Missoula, Montana, we recycle used fly line to create lanyards, bracelets, retainers for sunglasses, and other fly fishing accessories. Each product is hand-braided, using a pattern we developed over long Montana winters and while enduring muddy run-offs. As such, each piece is one-of-a-kind.

NEW From FLYVINES

Are you a pet lover who also loves to fly fish? Do you love to recycle to help protect our environment? If so, you might love the new products that FlyVines are just putting out! Not only will you be helping our environment but youll let everyone know that you love your pet and fly fishing at the same time.


Dog Collars and Leashes

• Collars @ $29.99
• Leashes @ $19.99

These new Collars and leashes are an ideal gift idea for your pet or someones elses pet. They come in all kinds of color combos and are adjustable and are waterproof...

Flyvines Bracelet

Purchase your bracelets today under $20.

Flyvines bracelets are fashionable for both men and women. The recycled fly line is braided and is adjustable once on your wrist. Colors vary.

Flyvines Eyewear Retainer

Purchase your eye glass retainer today under $10.

Keep your sunglasses on a leash with this retired fly line to help make sure you dont sit on them or allow them to run off.

Flyvines Lanyard

Purchase your Lanyard today under $20.

Flyvines offers stylish lanyards great for all types of uses. For fly fishing a lanyard is essential for holding tippet, clippers, hemostats and gink. Great for ski passes or name tag and business card holders for conventions and other business events.

ALSO NEW To the NW this year!

Purchase your Spey Bracelets today under $20.

Spey line bracelets create a thicker bracelet than the traditional Flyvines bracelets. The recycled fly line is braided and is adjustable once on your wrist. Colors vary.


Log on to gorgeflyshop.com or give us a call @ 541.386.6977
Buy Flyvines products -- you’ll be accessorizing with style while upcycling a product that would otherwise negatively impact the environment.

"Fly Fish the World with Us"

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Trout Spey Lines No Perfect Answer!

04.29 in and, answer, Boat Plans, fly, lines, nautilus, no, now, perfect, reels, spey, then, trout

I have put off writing this article for months now. Its not that I dont want to write it but I know as soon as I do some new switch line will hit the market and already this article will be old news. I know many of you are reaching out looking for this info so therefore I will wait no longer to publish what I know and well tackle the new when it gets here! For the purpose of this article I am focusing on trout size spey/switch rods.

Trout Spey/Switch Rods

What are they exactly? Baby spey rods...Small switch rods... Smaller versions of steelhead rods...Id like to point out that a switch rod cannot switch into anything! The rod itself cannot change! It is not a transformer! The action and power of any particular rod is fixed. To change what you do with a switch rod REQUIRES you to change the line to match the style of fishing you wish to do with it. With that out of the way lets now accept the fact that there is no one line that does it all, period! End of discussion! But heres the good news! With a little information, planning and practice you can tune your fishing conditions with various lines that will let you fish many different techniques with your switch rods.

Can you do it all with todays switch rods? The term "Switch Rod" implies that it is both a single hand rod and a spey rod but think of it in terms of the game of golf, thats like calling one golf club a switch club, same club that can drive your ball can putt your ball...Im sure Tiger Woods can beat me in golf with only one club BUT! He would never agree that there would ever only be one club to do it all! And I Agree! Now with that out of the way I do believe our modern trout spey rods are closer than ever to what we want in a trout rod action.

What line do I need?

To make this as simple as possible Ive decided to take it line by line and supply you the details of each including rods I have tried these lines on.

Airflo Switch Streamer

Airflo Switch Streamer

I put this line first simply because most anglers who are going to wield a two hand rod for trout are most likely going to swing or strip flies on sinking tips. This is your line! Were still waiting for this line to become available and it cant get here soon enough! My knowledge of it comes from fishing a prototype for almost a year. Tim Rajeff and Tom Larimer are the genius behind this line. The goal of the line is to appeal to trout anglers with shooting line integration and safely satisfy streamer angler needs with a line that is not afraid of T-Series sink tips. They nailed it plain and simple! Integrated with a Ridge running line the semi aggressive skagit style head handles T-7 and T-11 like a dream and if you need to lighten up it has enough finesse to behave friendly with polyleaders. Tom Larimer worked out the bugs of these lines to intentionally match them to perform perfect with the Winston BIIIx Microspeys although we have found they perform excellent on many different switch rods.
The Airflo Streamer Switch retails for $99.95 and comes with a Fast Sinking Polyleader to get you started. You will most likely want to go ahead and get an Airflo Custom Cut Single Sink Tip in the T-7 size.
Airflo Streamer Switch Specs -

Line Size	Color	Head Weight	Head Length	Sink Rate	Total Length
WF4	Pale Mint/Orange	300	18ft	Float	85ft
WF4.5	Pale Mint/Orange	330	18.5ft	Float	85ft
WF5	Pale Mint/Orange	360	18.5ft	Float	85ft
WF5.5	Pale Mint/Orange	390	20ft	Float	85ft
WF6	Pale Mint/Orange	420	20ft	Float	85ft

Current sizes give you a range from 300gr to 420gr. The 330gr is a great match on the Winston 4110 and equally as well for the sage ONE 4116. The Winston 5116 really likes the 390gr.

RIO Scandi Short VersiTip

RIO Scandi Short Versi-Tip

This short scandi taper line is an awesome switch rod line. I really like the tight loop casts it performs. It is a head system line so choose your shooting line. You can also buy this line as a head only and purchase the tips separately. The nice feature of the Versitip kit is it comes with the tip wallet and includes four matching tips. Floating, Intermediate, Type 3 and Type 6 sinking. Just as the name implies the kit gives you a ton of stream side versatility. Scandi tapers do a few things really well such as roll casting and overhead casting and of course spey casts great but Scandi Shorts do have some limitations to consider. They dont handle much more tip than the type 6 they are supplied with and they are limited to fly size. Where I have really liked this line is working with tandem soft hackle rigs. It presents well and the supplied tips lets you dial in just the depth you want to fish. While the Scandi Short works great in close I find the loop to loop to be a real pain for small water work. Ive submitted a request to RIO to make an integrated version of this line but I have no idea if that will come to light.

Specs -

SKU	Line Size	Head Weight	Head Length	Color	Sink Rate
6-20659	#4 275gr	275gr	33ft 10m	Straw	Flt w/ 4 tips
6-20660	#5 320gr	320gr	33ft 10m	Straw	Flt w/ 4 tips
6-20661	#6 370gr	370gr	33ft 10m	Straw	Flt w/ 4 tips
6-20662	#7 425gr	425gr	33ft 10m	Straw	Flt w/ 4 tips
6-20663	#8 485gr	485gr	33ft 10m	Straw	Flt w/ 4 tips
6-20664	#9 540gr	540gr	33ft 10m	Straw	Flt w/ 4 tips

Notice this chart gives you the actual head weight and tip weight separately

The Sage ONE 4116 really loves this line. The fast tip of the Sage really compliments the scandi taper but I also find the line to work great on the Winstons. The 275gr is a great match up for the Winston 3106. The 320gr is my go to for the Sage 4116 and equally excels with the Winston 4110. The 370gr is enough grains for the Winston 5116.

S/A Adapt

Scientific Anglers Adapt

Scientific Anglers you almost got this line right! So close! I liked this line and I wanted to really like this line! The Adapt (like the Airflo Streamer Switch) is an integrated line with a somewhat aggressive skagit head. The thin diameter running line really flies through the guides and the textured head stays on top of the water better than most others Ive fished. The problem is the front taper. Its fine if you are fishing tapered leaders but the problem starts when you add a sink tip. The line tapers down too small to retain enough mass to turn over a sinking tip. The result is struggling to turn over your casts. Polyleaders work decent with the Adapt line but forget fishing T-Series tips. I actually modified my line by cutting the tip back and welding a new loop to the end. The difference is huge. But who wants to chop their brand new $86.95 line. Im sure out of the box it would make a good nymph/indicator line.

Order #	Line Size	Head Length	Sink Rate	Total Length
120500	280gr	22ft	Float	100ft
120517	320gr	22ft	Float	100ft
120524	360gr	22ft	Float	100ft
120531	400gr	22ft	Float	100ft
120548	440gr	22ft	Float	100ft

The 320gr works well with the Sage 4116 and Winstons 4110. I also have the 360gr and thats the one I chopped the tip off the head. I took off 2.5 and that amount scale weighted 18gr so I ended up with a head weight of 342gr and T-Series sinking tips were no longer an issue after my modification.

A note to the manufacturers - As a line company yall need to decide if your switch line is made for leaders or tips. NOT BOTH! And please stop telling us they will do both! Ive been around the river long enough to know that the "MIDDLE GROUND" fly lines do not do anything good! There is no one line for all switch rod applications. In reference back to earlier in the article remember a switch rod cannot switch into anything. We must switch the line to match the technique desired from our switch rod. We have a serious need for technique specific switch lines.

RIO Switch Chucker

RIO Switch Chucker

I had high hopes for the Rio Switch Chucker and in some ways it delivered, others not so much! A full integrated head / shooting line was a welcome addition to the RIO lineup and received great attention upon its introduction. Unfortunately I feel like this line falls into the trap of "One line does it all." First the good about the Switch Chucker, its pretty easy casting provided you stay within some parameters. Tapered leaders or VersiLeaders (Polyleaders) are happy but T-Series not so much. Now when you get to larger sizes of this line it will carry some light T-Series like T-8. But when it comes to 4 and 5 weight trout sizes it no longer likes a sinking tip. Besides not carrying a sinking tip easily I have two other complaints with this line. 1) In low light its hard to see the color transition between the head and shooting line and 2) The incorporated handling section slows down shooting part of your cast. This handling section is 14 of thicker running line directly behind the head and is intended to make it easier to grip for cast and mend for nymphing. I guess if nymphing is your purpose for this line than you might find this to be a benefit. Stick to leaders, polyleaders or nymph/indicator rigs with the Switch Chucker and you will be happy!

RIO Switch Chucker

I tested the #4 325gr on both the Sage ONE 4116 and the Winston Microspey 4110 and the grain weight matched up with both rods really well.

RIO Switch Line
Im not going to spend any time with this line other than to say this is a great choice if you use a switch rod to nymph from a boat. Dont expect to enjoy spey casting this line! End of discussion!

Skagit Heads
RIO, Airflo and S/A all make skagit heads down to trout rod sizes. For big rivers, sink tips and full on swinging flies these skagits work great. The RIO Max Short comes in sizes all the way down to 200gr. S/A Skagit Extreme comes in sizes down to 280gr and although S/A does not designate these as short or switch heads these smaller sizes do have shorter lengths suited for the shorter rods.The Airflo Skagit Switch starts at 360gr which can help your 5 weight and up switch rods. I dont spend much time with these skagits. Yes they work but they are really just downsized steelhead skagits. Two hand trout anglers like myself are really looking for a line designed for my game and not just an adopted line that already exists.

Overhead casting lines

Many anglers have found great use with switch rods for making long casts from beaches or jetties.
Ive heard many accounts from east coast striper anglers to west coast sea run cutthroat anglers of the use of switch rods for overhead casting. Typically we find in most cas

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Korkers Defined All about Sole!

02.52 in about, all, answer, Boat Plans, defined, korkers, lines, no, perfect, sole, spey, trout

Korkers - Defined

Lets talk about Korkers. There has been confusion on sizing and which sole option best suits your needs. We hope this answers your questions.

SIZING: 

When it’s time to purchase a new wading boot it is always confusing to know which size is best.

Please see our Wading boot sizing guide for all general rules. We want to note however, that if you own the older Korkers sole boot (the one where only the middle part of the sole is interchangeable) the sizing on those boots are different than the current models. So please use the one full size up rule and not purchase the same size as your previous boots as they will not fit.

Studded Felt vs Studded Kling-On 
Studded Felt in the water is our preference however on the sides of the river and while hiking felt can become slippery. Also to note that in temperatures below freezing snow can build up on wet felt or can freeze.

AS OF THIS WRITING: All Korkers boots can be purchased with two different sole configurations. This is true except the Redside boot which offers three configurations.

First Configuration
Kling-On and Felt this is the base price for all boot models. (2 sets of soles)

Second Configuration
Kling-On and Studded Kling-On this is a $20.00 upgrade (2 sets of soles)

Redside Only - Has above two options plus they offer a Felt only option for a great price of $99.99 (only 1 set of felt soles)

All other soles are considered accessory soles and purchased separate from the boots. 

Korkers Soles - Defined

Kling-On Sticky Rubber - Basic sole that comes with all boots. Great for use in boats / inflatables and basic hiking situations. While it is sticky rubber, it was not designed for highly slippery conditions.

Studded Kling-On Rubber - Same as Kling-On but with 26 carbide-tip studs per pair. These are great for slicker conditions or where studded felt can not be used.

Felt - Compressed high quality felt provides great traction while wading in the water. As noted above, depending on your wading conditions studded felt might be a better option as plain felt is not as grippy without studs.

Its all about that Sole!

Studded Felt - Plain felt soles adorned with 26 carbide tip studs per pair. Our number one choice of soles for our home waters and extremely slick conditions. Keep in mind while felt is great in the water it can be very slippery outside of the water and in very cold conditions snow/ice can build up on your feet. If this occurs we recommend changing the soles back to a rubber based sole for hiking in between fishing spots or back to your rig. That is a Korkers Boot Bonus…. not another boot out there allows you to change your soles while on the water.

Alumatrax - Our # 1 selling Accessory sole - These soles are a great alternative to studded felt. The aluminum bars are made here in the USA and for this reason very limited quantity. Aluminum is a soft metal, offering exceptional grip in the most slick wading conditions. One downfall….aluminum wears out faster vs. carbide but due to how grippy it is still very popular.

Studded Rubber - Large aggressive 7mm threaded carbide tip spikes adorn these flat rubber soles. Please note these studs are replaceable. These soles are great for those whom are Jetty fishing or fishing in highly slick conditions. Not the most comfortable to do much hiking in.

Vibram Idrogrip - Idrogrip is made by Vibram. This sole has a deep and wide lug patterns that offers better grip in tougher wading conditions. Great all around sole.

Studded Idrogrip - Same as Idrogrip but with carbide studs which offers even more grip in slick conditions.

Do you have the current generation of Korkers with OmniTrax v3.0 soles?

They are pretty easy to identify if you look closely at these pictures. The current OmniTrax v3.0 soles have a U-shaped notch on the front portion of the sole. They are the only ones that have this feature. Gorge Fly Shop only stocks current OmniTrax v3.0 soles. If you are searching for older generations please call us for information and availability.

Three generations of Korkers Soles

We hope this information is helpful in your quest to find the perfect wading boot and soles to match. Korkers Innovative design and comfort really allow you to utilize one boot in many ways with the replaceable and interchangeable soles. If you are headed on a trip and will need a studded sole but your friend does not want studs in his boat….easy fix just throw your non studded sole in your pack and you just solved a big problem without needing to haul a second set of boots.

For further questions or information please feel free to contact us via phone or email. We are here 7 days a week to help!

Helpful links:

Wading Boots - Finding the right size
Korkers K-5 Bomber Wading Boot (New for 2015)
Korkers Wading Boots




Lyndsey Duddles
Gorge Fly Shop | "Deskmaster"
541.386.6977

"Fly Fish the World with Us"

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