Leland on Rio Skagit Versitip Kit Spey Line

No doubt, Skagit style casting is the fastest growing segment of spey casting! Until recently only available as a custom-made line, the RIO Skagit Versitip Spey Line is now the one to have for this incredibly efficient method. There’s no better spey line design for booming out big flies and heavy sink tips over long distances. And because of the short 27’ head length, only a few feet of backcast room is required. The RIO Skagit Spey Line is the easiest spey line for a beginner to learn with, due to its compact mass, which quickly loads the rod.

Leland on Specifications

The RIO Skagit Versitip Spey Line comes packaged with a shooting head wallet, a 5 ft cheater and a 15 ft DC Type 6 (6 ips, 15 cm/s) and a DC Type 8 (8 ips, 20 cm/s) interchangeable sinking tip. The RIO Spey Line Recommendation Chart will show the correct Skagit Versitip Line for your Leland Spey Rod. You can add an additional 15' floating tip or other 15'sink tips, or longer cheaters for longer rods as options to your Skagit Versitip Line System. Now you'll be ready and in control for any big anadromous fish that swim your way!

Specifications:

• Taper: Very Short Head (27’)(8.3m) Floating Spey with front loop for interchangeable tips
• Total Length: 120 feet (36.5m)
• 5' Cheater included
• Interchangeable Tips included
• o DC Type 6 (15ft – 6 ips)
• o DC Type 8 (15ft – 8 ips)
• Optional Available Interchangeable Tips
• o Floating (15ft)
• o Intermediate (15ft – 1.5 ips)
• o DC Type 3 (15ft – 3 ips)
• Core: Braided Multifilament Nylon
• Coating: SlickShooter Process
• Color: Yellow with black “loading point

The RIO Skagit Lines are, quite simply, the easiest way to cast large flies or fast sinking tips. The mass of the head and the short body length result in incredible lifting power, making it child’s play to cast otherwise “nasty” rigs. It is a very easy line to learn to cast with and also extremely useful for casting in tight situations. The Skagit Versitip Spey Fly Line is available in: 450, 550, 650, and 750 grain head weights.

The Skagit Spey Lines have a thin running line extending from the 27 ft long head that aids in easy distance and shooting ability. The overall length of the Skagit is 120 feet (36.5m). The front end finishes with a loop and to this loop you will need to attach a tip. The Skagit VersiTip is packaged with a 5 ft floating Skagit cheater, a 15 ft Type 6 tip, a 15 ft Type 8 tip and one of RIO’s shooting head wallets. 

RIO makes five 15 ft tips to chose from:           
1. Floating (optional)
2. Intermediate (1.5 to 2 ips) (optional)
3. Type 3 (3-4 ips) (optional)
4. Type 6 (6-7 ips) included
5. Type 8 (8-9 ips) included

With these tips and the RIO Skagit Spey Line, you'll be able to reach and cover those big chromers wherever they may hide!

Leland on Rio Fly Fishing Lines

Traveling cross-country during his annual quest to and from the land of the silver king, the Florida tarpon and the land of the silver streak, the steelhead of British Columbia Jim Vincent learned the true meaning of life: It's too short for lousy fly lines! The truth is, being exposed to so many different fishing conditions, guides, and anglers, Jim came to understand there was a need for specialty fly lines, leaders and tippets. After 10 years of travels he started his company in pursuit of those elusive perfect lines, leaders and tippets to be used in the right fishing conditions. With the help of his field staff of guides, captains and anglers, like you, Jim tested and retested every product before releasing it to the public. His pursuit of the right line has brought us fly lines like, the RIO Grand a line specifically designed for today’s modern fast action fly rods and the Density Compensated (DC) lines that delivered a menagerie of fly lines that sink at a consent and equal rate, no sagging here, as well as the first truly castable full sink line. Today RIO continues to innovate with products like Agent X that along with Super Float Technology provide second to fly line floatability and now XS (Extreme Slickness) Technology for near friction-free casting. These are fly lines you just gotta try, period.

Rio's Simon Gawesworth on Rio Skagit Versitip Kit Spey Line

The most recent style of spey casting is called Skagit casting (pronounced ska-jit) and named after the Skagit river in Washington.

This style of spey casting utilizes an even shorter head length spey line than the WindCutter - something in the region of 27 ft. This exceptionally short head length allows the fly caster to make long casts in extremely tight situations. Even the most basic of spey casters can make a 70 ft cast with no more than 3 ft of room behind. Added to the shortness of the line is the fact that the head weighs about the same amount as the corresponding WindCutter, but at half the length. This means that the Skagit line has almost twice the weight per inch of the WindCutter line. This extra weight per inch is an immense asset for lifting out deeply sunken tips or heavy, large flies. Nothing will pick up big flies or T-14 or LC13 style sink tips as easily as a Skagit line will.

The Skagit VersiTip is a Skagit line, packaged with a 5 ft floating Skagit cheater, a 15 ft Type 6 tip, a 15 ft Type 8 tip and one of RIO’s shooting head wallets. For those that don’t know much about the Skagit technique and tackle it is a good purchase as it has pretty well everything you need to start with. The only possible add on would be a 15 ft floating tip, for conditions when you don’t need to be deep. The Skagit VersiTip is available in 450, 550, 650 and 750 grain sizes.

Skagit Cheaters

The most confusion with Skagit lines comes with something called “Skagit Cheaters”, which are 2½ ft, 5 ft and 7½ ft extension pieces for a Skagit line.

One of the ideas behind Skagit casting is that you want to maintain a constant ratio between the rod length and the head length of the line. It maybe 3 times the rod length, it may be 4 times the rod length, and each caster will find their happy ratio.
 
For the purpose of this example, let’s say a caster likes a ratio of 3½:1. A 12 ft rod would require 42 ft of line and a 15 ft rod will require 52½ ft. By following this ratio, it means that the caster never needs to adjust their casting stroke, regardless of which outfit they pick up.

If a caster likes this ratio and uses a 12 ft rod, they are going to need 42 ft of line to feel comfortable. The Skagit line has a 27 ft head. Add a 15 ft sink tip and you get 42 ft, which means there is no cheater needed. The next day, the same caster casts a 14 ft rod - 14 x 3½ = 49 ft. So, to keep the same casting stroke, the caster needs a total head length around 49 ft. A 27 ft Skagit line, plus the 15 ft sink tip is only 42 ft. Plug in the 7½ ft Cheater and the head length becomes 49½ ft and much closer to the required ratio.

The whole idea is pretty confusing to a novice, but once the concept is grasped, it is very easy to understand and allows for a caster to develop a consistent style, regardless of the size of rod used.

A final note to mention on the Skagit lines is that the sink tip does not form part of the calculation for line weight. If you look at the spey line recommendation chart and decide on a Skagit line for your rod, make sure you use the weight of the Skagit body. If the chart suggests you need a 550 grain Skagit line, it does not matter which size sink tip you add on to the front end of this (as long as it is not heavier than the Skagit body). The reason for this is that the sink tip usually does not form part of the D-loop and, therefore, plays no role in loading the rod. A typical example is that someone is told that they need a 550 grain Skagit line. They know they are going to use a 150 grain sink tip, so they buy a 400 grain Skagit line (thinking that the two added together will give them the correct load). This is very wrong and will result in an under loaded outfit. Make sure the Skagit body weight is correct, regardless of the sink tip. 

The Skagit Floating Tip is a 15 ft floating tip designed to be added to the Skagit lines to make a full floater. Here is a guideline of which floating tip to choose for which Skagit line:

 #7      300 to 400 grains
 #8      400 to 500 grain lines
 #9      500 to 600 grain lines
#10     550 to 650 grain lines
#11     600 to 700 grain lines
#12     650 to 750 grain lines.

The Skagit Cheaters are “plug-in” extensions as mentioned earlier. For 2008 RIO has changed the sizes to be more applicable. Each selection packet comes with a 2½ ft, a 5 ft and a 7½ ft floating cheater as well as a 5 ft intermediate cheater. Here is a guideline of which Cheater to choose for which Skagit line:

      6/7/8      300 to 350 grains
      7/8/9      350 to 450 grains
    8/9/10      450 to 550 grains
  9/10/11      550 to 650 grains
10/11/12      650 to 750 grains

The Big Boy is a 24 ft long sinking tip, ideal for really getting deep and staying deep. It is great on the end of a Skagit line. They are available in sizes 150, 200, 250, 300, 400, 500 and 600 grains and the sink rate of each is as follows:

150      4.8 ips
200      5.5 ips
250      6.4 ips
300      7.3 ips
400      8.4 ips
500      9.0 ips
600      9.5 ips 

Here’s a rough guideline to the maximum weight Big Boy that each line will take. This does depend on the rod, current speed, fly size and caster’s skill!

Skagit	Big Boy
300	150
350	200
400	250
450	300
500	300
550	400
600	400
650	500
700	500
750	600

Rio on Rio Skagit Spey Line:

Modern Spey fly lines were pioneered and developed by Jim Vincent, with the help of other proficient spey casters. RIO Products, the Spey Line Specialist, is the only company with five different spey taper designs so casters can choose the right line for their individual preferences. RIO has done it again by introducing the revolutionary Skagit Spey for 2006. RIO has the most comprehensive array of floating and interchangeable tip spey lines to fulfill the needs of every situation, every spey rod design and every casting ability.

 

The Skagit Spey is a revolutionary new line designed for the Skagit-style spey casting. This casting technique requires a line with a very short, 27 ft (8.3 m), heavy head that will propel heavy sink tips and big flies great distances with a very short casting stroke. Skagit casting is easy for novice or experienced casters to learn. For casting the Skagit Spey, the total head length and weight must be matched to the rod. The total head length including the sink tip should be no more than 3 - 3 1/2 times the length of the rod. To adjust for rod length and loading, simply add a 5 ft or 10 ft Skagit Cheater to achieve the desired load and length. The RIO 15 ft sinking tips or T14 may be used to achieve the desired depth. The Skagit Spey features RIO's welded loop for fast tip changes and is also available as a full floating line with a 44 ft (13.4 m) head to cast bombers and weighted flies for summer steelhead. The head is green with a yellow running line for optimum casting control.

Scott O’Donnell on Skagit Lines 

“All levels of skill at spey casting will benefit from the versatility of Rio’s Skagit Lines, but I don't believe anyone benefits more than I do. I'm a steelhead guide that specializes in teaching spey casting. Each day my responsibility is, not only helping people to become proficient casters (often for the first time), but catching a fish or two as well. So, it’s in my best interest that my anglers learn to cast a decent line as quickly as possible so that I may begin to teach them how to fish. Rio’s Skagit Lines have decreased the time it takes my anglers to become good enough casters to be confident anglers - tenfold. The short, heavy head is second to none for turning over heavy sink tips and huge flies, and it’s versatile enough to fish a dry fly, making it the favorite line of many seasoned spey anglers. More importantly to me, the extra head weight makes it easier to feel the rod load, which makes it easier for the beginner to learn.”

Jim Vincent on RIO

Kitty and I started RIO in 1990 after ten years of living and traveling in an Airstream trailer, fishing from Key West to Northern British Columbia each year. This great lifestyle-which we still enjoy today as often as possible-taught us plenty. In working as freelance writers and photographers from coast to coast, we were able to meet, write about, and photograph some of the best anglers in the country. As we worked with them, they taught us their techniques. And this in turn became part of an ever-growing knowledge base.

 

Long before RIO started manufacturing fly lines, I was a fishing bum for many years. In the search for the right line, I'd make new tapers all the time as I cut up and epoxy-spliced together pieces of fly line. I come at fly line design from an intuitive rather than an engineering point of view; experience drives innovation at RIO. We don't hire guys in white lab coats to design a better way to connect a fish to a fly line. The product development process has to incorporate the input of fly fishers, guides and captains; and the hours, days, and years of standing in rivers, wading on flats, surfcasting or standing on the deck of a flats boat. We know that to create great products, you have to spend hours on the water, in the water, casting, reading water, combating and resolving myriad factors in order to catch fish consistently. On the water is the primary laboratory, because only there can one understand the truth about fly fishing.

 

RIO is recognized as the premier company in fly fishing products; leaders and tippet materials for every fly fishing discipline as well as for manufacturing the world's best fly lines at its Idaho factory.

 

To keep our customers happy, our product design and development process is complex-because every fly fisher's experience on the water presents numerous challenges. It takes creativity to synthesize in a design all the many factors that affect the functionality of a fly line, leader or tippet material. Luckily, the RIO Team is dedicated to understanding the reality of the fly fishing process, because many people who work at RIO are fly fishers; and it is our collective experience and the expertise of our customers that drives RIO's creative products.

 

So, what kind of factors are we talking about? To name a few . . . depth, distance, wind, delicate presentation, meteoric powerhouse delivery, visibility, extreme heat, extreme cold, manageability, color perception, and many others. Awareness of all these factors is how the designs for RIO Products are born, as on-the-water experience and understanding of nature meet man-made materials and techniques of the laboratory and the fly line factory. Each product we bring you started out in the minds of avid fly fishers, then evolved from "what if" to "how?" This process is what our company is all about: the continual search on many levels for the most functionally creative designs to solve the problems presented not only by fish, but the elements and environs in which they hunt and live. This process is what has brought about our latest technological revolution."

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