airflo super dri

[jdecoudres]

Looking for some review on the airflo super dri and the super dri nymph line in particular.
Let me know if you have used it or know about them please.

 

[jr spey]

I've fished Airflo lines since the Sue and Paul Burgess days in the late '70's and early '80's. I always liked their sinking lines, but they could never get the floating lines to actually float. At least float on top of the water rather than in the film. I invested in several of the SuperDri versions when they were first released maybe three or four years ago. Eureka! They actually float. I've got several Exceed and Elite lines and love them. Great tapers, are not affected by sunscreen or Deet products, and Rajeff Sports provides wonderful customer service, both to the customer and their dealers. I have not tried their Nymph line, but it's the same line with a slightly different taper.

 

[jayr]

I have a couple of AirFlo Super Dri Elite lines on my rods. I really like them, my favorite actually.

A lot will depend on the rod you put it on as to whether it is good or not. Most of my rods are medium action and they really do well with it.

 

[scotty macfly]

I agree with the above comments. I will also add that they stay cleaner longer, so less maintenance is involved.

I find that with traditional trout rods with a medium action the Elite does very well.

Medium fast likes both the Elite or Exceed.

Fast rods that are not super fast like the Radian I find personally it likes the Exceed.

A super fast rod like the Sage One I would use Airflo River & Stream.

These are just my opinions on what I have observed for my preference, you may choose differently.

For the nymphing line, my son & nephew praise that line. I'm not much into nymphing, and a fly line nymphing to me makes little sense since when I nymph, which isn't much, the only thing in the water for me is the leader & tippet. I Czech nymph when I nymph, so my fly line is out of the water. But my son says it mends very well, and it rolls the fly out easily to the seam he is fishing. But that's all I know about the nymph line.

As for the Super Dri lines, they are on all my reels.

 

[bevanwj]

I won't touch Airflo lines. I've tried a few and don't like them. The two words that come to mind when I think of Airflo lines are ropey and spongey. They are thicker than equivalent PVC lines therefore they take up more room on the reel - you either have to lose some backing to accommodate them or use a larger reel. The coating is softer than that on PVC lines - traditional leader to line connections like the nail knot do not work well. The line coating is easily stripped from the core with only a small amount of pull. They also cut easily and their thicker size makes them less wind resistant. On the bright side, the new Super Dri lines do float exceptionally well but that is not enough for me to wnat to use them again.

 

[el jefe]

I won't touch Airflo lines. I've tried a few and don't like them. The two words that come to mind when I think of Airflo lines are ropey and spongey. They are thicker than equivalent PVC lines therefore they take up more room on the reel - you either have to lose some backing to accommodate them or use a larger reel. The coating is softer than that on PVC lines - traditional leader to line connections like the nail knot do not work well. The line coating is easily stripped from the core with only a small amount of pull. They also cut easily and their thicker size makes them less wind resistant. On the bright side, the new Super Dri lines do float exceptionally well but that is not enough for me to wnat to use them again.

The thickness of the line and subsequent removal was a surprise to me, but a non-issue, really. Unless you are fishing for huge fish, the backing isn't really an issue. As for the softness of the coating, if you use the little braided loop-to-loop connectors courtesy of Ard on this forum, that fixes that issue, too. And nothing floats like an Airflo...nothing.

 

[james w 3 3]

I've fished Airflo lines since the Sue and Paul Burgess days in the late '70's and early '80's. I always liked their sinking lines, but they could never get the floating lines to actually float. At least float on top of the water rather than in the film. I invested in several of the SuperDri versions when they were first released maybe three or four years ago. Eureka! They actually float. I've got several Exceed and Elite lines and love them. Great tapers, are not affected by sunscreen or Deet products, and Rajeff Sports provides wonderful customer service, both to the customer and their dealers. I have not tried their Nymph line, but it's the same line with a slightly different taper.

How do you undo an accidental "dislike"?!?!?!?!?!?? In fact your post is spot on!
I'm a huge Airflo fan, and their clear floating line is my secret weapon in stillwater.

 

[mka]

I have a Super Dri Elite on my 4wt Winston and like it much! It casts great, floats, and catches a lot of trout Don't know anything about the technical stuff with it...just that it works!!!

 

[sweetandsalt]

I won't touch Airflo lines. I've tried a few and don't like them. The two words that come to mind when I think of Airflo lines are ropey and spongey. They are thicker than equivalent PVC lines therefore they take up more room on the reel - you either have to lose some backing to accommodate them or use a larger reel. The coating is softer than that on PVC lines - traditional leader to line connections like the nail knot do not work well. The line coating is easily stripped from the core with only a small amount of pull. They also cut easily and their thicker size makes them less wind resistant. On the bright side, the new Super Dri lines do float exceptionally well but that is not enough for me to wnat to use them again.

I concur with much of this but still have a few Airflo lines in use, a Tropical Punch and a Bonefish, I favor non-stretch lines in the salt. I wanted to like the Bandit, it has a great taper, but it is too thick and soft, cutting easily especially when fished from a drift boat but the worst aspect of floating Airflo lines is their tendency to coil and knot up in their running line, my main issue with them. Also, comparing Elite to similar taper SA, RIO and Cortland lines, the Airflo has a bit of kick in its turnover, possibly from its no-stretch core or something in its taper design that eliminated from contention for me. I achieve overall better casting and presentation performance from the RIO, SA and Cortland products.

 

[jr spey]

I concur with much of this but still have a few Airflo lines in use, a Tropical Punch and a Bonefish, I favor non-stretch lines in the salt. I wanted to like the Bandit, it has a great taper, but it is too thick and soft, cutting easily especially when fished from a drift boat but the worst aspect of floating Airflo lines is their tendency to coil and knot up in their running line, my main issue with them. Also, comparing Elite to similar taper SA, RIO and Cortland lines, the Airflo has a bit of kick in its turnover, possibly from its no-stretch core or something in its taper design that eliminated from contention for me. I achieve overall better casting and presentation performance from the RIO, SA and Cortland products.

I find this extremely interesting. One of the reasons I switched to Airflo from mostly Rio products is the constant problem with coiling and knotting in the running lines with Rio. These days most of my fishing is warm water, especially musky. When I got an early version of the Rio Pike/Musky taper I had a knotted up mess after less than a half hour of fishing. It was so bad it couldn't be untangled, at least without an hour or more of screwing with it. It sent it back to Rio, talked to Zack about it, and got a replacement line. The pike/musky taper is a modification of the OBS taper and I've had problems with those, too. I switched to the Airflo Sniper tapers and can honestly fish an entire week for muskies and not have to unwind the running line even once. I believe some of this varies per fisherman. Different casting strokes seem to have a different affect on the lines. For example, my fishing partner has to untwist his running line by going counterclockwise and I have to go clockwise. We're both right handed casters so it has to be our strokes that make the difference. I fish muskies with one other person on occasion and he rarely has line twist at all. I baptized my Airflo Elite and Exceed on the Missouri River below Holter dam a few years ago. We were fishing "heads" during a trico hatch and the guide wanted us to throw about 50' casts so that we didn't spook the fish with the boat. In a week's time I think I had to uncoil my running line only once or twice and even then it wasn't badly coiled, just to the point of being irritating.

 

[sweetandsalt]

That is interesting and it was on that same section of the Missouri that Airflo Bandit gave me such fits. I wanted to fish a non-stretch core line on my NRX#6 and experimented with Bandit which has now been replaced with RIO IT Gold with superior results...go figure.

We used to have an active British guide on this Forum and he laughed at this coiling issue commenting that every hard core type in England was aware of Airflo floating lines coiling issues and only field their sinking lines for reservoir work so popular there. This past autumn I fished two different cold water Airflo lines off Montauk Point with the same guide, an old chum of mine. One worked well the other was a tangled mess. He was mad at me, why try this horrible one when you had a good one last week? (the "good" one was their Striper/Albie Line) It is interesting how our experiences and lines can vary so much.

 

[jr spey]

Is this the same guy (the British guy) who referred to them as Air Flop? I've run across him on the English Sexy Loops site. I thought his issue was that they couldn't get the darn things to float, so maybe it was a different guy. He was a "stitch" to read, although at the time I agreed with him about their floating lines. This was probably ten years ago when Airfo floating lines didn't float.

 

[scotty macfly]

I have been using this line for a few years, the Elite & Exceed, and reading the comments on the line coiling has me baffled. I have not had any coils in my running line at all. Maybe I'm just lucky in that aspect.

I know people complain about nail knots not holding onto the fly line, and I did have that issue just once when a friend sold me his line. I tied my leader to it with a nail knot and it did slip. I tied it again but tying it slowly & methodically, then slowly tightened it down keeping everything in place. That knot was solid. No matter how hard I pulled it wouldn't slip.

Though I myself prefer loop to loop connections & furled leaders. The line with the nail knot attached had the loop cut off.

 

[falcon53]

I just picked up a Airflow 2018 catalog. I really liked the taper on the Bandit. Front taper is 6.5 (incl tip), Belly is 24 and Rear taper is 20. The first 12 ft are camo bands. Seems some have issues with tangling and thickness.

The Ridge Striper looks like a good line. Is this line also "too thick" or thicker than other companies offerings?

 

[el jefe]

I just picked up a Airflow 2018 catalog. I really liked the taper on the Bandit. Front taper is 6.5 (incl tip), Belly is 24 and Rear taper is 20. The first 12 ft are camo bands. Seems some have issues with tangling and thickness.

The Ridge Striper looks like a good line. Is this line also "too thick" or thicker than other companies offerings?

What does "too thick" mean? What is the "right" thickness for a line?

 

[jr spey]

There is no correct answer to that question. I haven't noticed a big discrepancy between Airflo's product and that of others. If both lines are of the same length I would guess the difference is in the diameter of the running lines. All else being equal, I've found that thicker running lines tend to snarl at a slower pace. It could be I've found that Airflo's lines coil less is due to a thicker running line. I know the running line on the original Rio OBS was really thin and I think that contributed to the problem with it (for me at least.). Over the last five years I've replaced about 20 Rio lines with similar lines from Airflo and I haven't noticed any appreciable difference. At least not to the point where I had to remove backing or cut back the running line. Maybe it's specific to a couple of line types that I don't use. One also has to be very careful here as choosing lines with different tapers in the head can make a huge difference regarding capacity. I exchanged a Rio Grande for an Airflo Exceed as the tapers were very close to being the same.

 

[sweetandsalt]

While I'm knocking Airflo, let me add that RIO OBS and Grand are both horrible too. El Jefe,, this is not fact just my empirical observation but the Airflo polymer coating feels thicker and softer than the PVC coating on the American lines. Also I suspect that the core on the Airflo is thinner than the braided cores on the US lines, braided nylon of thinner of thicker denier for RIO and some Cortland and braided combination of nylon and dacron for SA/Orvis. Some Cortland and RIO lines have a "monocore" instead of braid. Core type and relative stiffness have a lot to do with how a line feels and casts...and possibly, coils.

 

[el jefe]

While I'm knocking Airflo, let me add that RIO OBS and Grand are both horrible too. El Jefe,, this is not fact just my empirical observation but the Airflo polymer coating feels thicker and softer than the PVC coating on the American lines. Also I suspect that the core on the Airflo is thinner than the braided cores on the US lines, braided nylon of thinner of thicker denier for RIO and some Cortland and braided combination of nylon and dacron for SA/Orvis. Some Cortland and RIO lines have a "monocore" instead of braid. Core type and relative stiffness have a lot to do with how a line feels and casts...and possibly, coils.

I concur, the Airflo lines are thicker (and softer), which had me taking a little backing off to be able to fit the lines on my reels. To start with, I probably had too much backing on the reels, but I see some who list the line being too thick and taking up too much room on the reel as a detraction. I was accustomed to thinner lines in the same line weights, so it was weird at first, but how the line thickness impacts the amount of backing on a reel (for trout and most freshwater fishing) seems irrelevant. It's just that so many of us were used to something else, but that doesn't mean the older is better, just that it's older. (By the way, I recognize you are not making that "too thick" criticism, I'm just speaking more generally.)

Now, if one wants to make the argument that the thicker line handles differently, or coils more/less, or casts differently, I get that. But how much backing the reel will hold with certain lines is an odd criticism of a line when fishing for species that do not take you into your backing. In over 15 years of fly fishing, I have seen my backing once.

 

[falcon53]

I don't think the criticism is in reference to the supposed decreased amount of backing the line will allow on a reel. In my experience if a fish in a river gets 50 yards of backing on you downstream its a lost cause anyway. Fish wins simple as that.

 

[jr spey]

While I'm knocking Airflo, let me add that RIO OBS and Grand are both horrible too.

In my opinion, they are not horrible lines, just lines used by many anglers for the wrong purposes. The OBS wasn't designed to be a line for flats fishing, or for delicate presentations to trout. It is an integrated shooting head and is designed to function much like a standard 30' shooting head with a thin running line connected loop to loop. Too many anglers find that this line, and its similar lines from Aiflo (Sniper) and others, allow them to feel their ultra-fast rod load. Therefore, they fall in love with it as it beats practicing to develop a more aggressive casting stroke. For casting large flies a short distance or used for distance like a shooting head, it's a fine line. I wish when they converted that taper to the Pike/Musky line they had increased the diameter of the running line more than they did, however.

As for the Rio Grande and similar lines like the Airflo Exceed, once again it's a terrific line for certain applications. When fishing that trico hatch on the Missouri I mentioned in an earlier post, that type of line would be horrible to use. However, those hatches don't last all day, and some days they don't come off at all. Even on a good day with minimal wind, the trico hatch on the Missouri is usually over by 2:00. Now what? Well, moist guys revert to chasing balloons. I've never enjoyed that so I'm more likely to fish streamers. But even better than streamers are hoppers. Just because it's not hopper season yet, doesn't mean that the fish won't eat a well presented, relatively small, hopper pattern. For years, I followed Dave Whitlock's advice and used a bass bug taper to present hoppers. These days, fly line companies no longer make a bass bug taper, or do so only in heavier line weights. However, the Grande/Exceed is the perfect replacement. In fact, the Exceed is probably the best hopper line I've ever used. All these various tapers get designed for a reason. Guys who don't like a taper usually discover that they bought the wrong tapered line for the application(s) they intend. Frankly, not everyone can afford to have a line for each application and that's where a standard WF taper can be a decent compromise.