Phoenix Silk Flylines – a review from Australia

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Australia, benefits, casting, fly fishing, flyfishing, silk fly lines, user reviews

Part of the joy of making Phoenix Lines is the direct contact with our clients. The lines are hand crafted and, of necessity, take time to make.  It is therefore heartwarming, especially during the winter months, to receive reports from clients about their use of Phoenix flylines and their various adventures.  Here is one such report from Peter Elks in Australia, who has been using Phoenix since 2003, possibly longer.  We are hugely grateful to Peter for taking the time to write this and found it very readable indeed.

“I am still a huge fan of your lines as they really do outperform the moderns in categories that really do count when it comes to good fish coming to the bank.

It is very apparent in Australia that a great many flyfishers frequently overlook or simply don’t take the time to acknowledge the real benefits offered. Maybe it’s because many feel that modern technology overides everything from the past, and that modern must be better? So we stop both looking and thinking further!

The benefits of a Phoenix silk silk double taper are to my belief as follows —

Pick up and laydown is direct, accurate, slick and has less surface disturbance than plastic.
The way these lines float ensures they cast lesser shadows than modern lines.
The lines have practically zero memory yet are very supple.
The lines are naturally textured to assist in the aerodynamic efficiency and floatation qualities, yet they are soft and supple on the fingers.
Rollcasting and variations of such casts, such, as spey, are far superior to any other line I have ever used.
The tip diameter of the lines is considerably less than modern equivalents.
Low flash finish and a real time wind cheating ability due to the lines weight and diameter ratios gives additional edges over plastic .
Furthermore a greased line floats and an ungreased is a perfect intermediate yet both these qualities is stored on the one reel you fish with.

All these qualities then present a very fishy array of major benefits not found in modern lines and for me personally are the direct reason I’ve been able to outwit some truly well educated good trout in the past few years.”

Website:  www.phoenixclassics.com

Would like to know about care of a Silk Fly line:  Link

Some notes on rod action

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bamboo and silk, casting, fly fishing, fly rod, flyfishing, rod action, silk

I suppose that there are three descriptions of rod action: fast, medium and slow, and, of course, all points in between. Forget all the adjectives such as progressive, parabolic etc.

A fast action rod flexes predominantly at the tip

A medium rod has the action moving down the middle part of the rod

A slow action rod bends down into the grip.

Imagine gripping a common playing card on one edge and flicking it with the other hand, then listen for the sound. Next grip the card in the middle and flick, and finally grip it three quarters of the way down and flick again. The sound the card makes gets higher in pitch the more the card is forced to bend nearer the end.

This is exactly the same with a fly rod. If the tip only bends, the rod recovers very quickly, short tip movement equals fast action and tight loops. As the action moves down the rod the tip moves further and further taking longer and longer to recover, making larger loops and slowing down the rod.

Do not be misled by all the hype that tight loops are essential to ‘good’ rod action. A wide loop will allow a fly to be presented more slowly and delicately in situations that need it. When roll casting a slow action rod will roll the line out far more effectively than a fast action rod. For example, this can be seen when using greenheart rods both for roll and traditional spey casting. If one has a slower action rod the wider loop can be offset by using silk lines which are thinner and cut through the wind better. A similar effect can be seen with faster action rods.