I love to fish mono behind my shooting heads. It’s effortless to jack casts of any length and have total control over the swing because mono, being so light, is easy to manipulate when the line is laid out on the water. But if you fish mono a lot, you know that winter steelheading with it can create a few moments of sheer frustration and followed by foul language as the shooting line slips in your grasp and what was to be the epic spey cast of all spey casts, falls from the sky or never leaves the water. I count on that total-failure-to-load-the-rod catastrophe to happen about 6 times a day, and more often as the temperature drops to near freezing. Unless you wrap some of that double sided sticky tape around the flared of the full wells grip, it seems that no amount of pressure can keep the slick mono against the cork with enough friction to keep it in place.
Well, here is the answer, if you’re on of those guys who hates wrapping fine cork with rubber tape from the local hardware store:
Introducing RIO Products GRIP SHOOTER!
The first 14 feet of the running line is coated with a thin layer of PVC (“Handling Layer”) so you can pinch it against the cork and it won’t slip!
The running line has a large loop on the business end for the skagit head to pass through.
This stuff rocks. My only input would be to coat the first 20 feet of the line with the stuff instead of only 14 feet so I have room to snip off that loop when it wears out and still have enough coated line left to grip when fishing a 13 foot rod or longer.
Get some. Fish it.
JM