Why I choose tropical…
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his past striped bass season I tried a lot of different fly lines on the boat. I prefer to fish tropical fly lines almost exclusively here in the Northeast despite the fact that we are far from the tropics. The reason for this is that I find after stretching the lines that I get fewer knots and tangles than I do with the limper cold water lines. I find the stiffer line just shoots better in general. With that in mind, I got my hands on the Cortland Tropic Plus Intermediate and rigged it on one of the fast action Sage X 10 weights that I keep on the boat. The results were excellent.
Cortland Tropic Plus Intermediate
The skinny…
The Tropic Plus Intermediate fly line is built on a monofilament core and sinks at 1.5-2 inches per second. I find that super slow sink rate gets the fly line through the chop so that it no longer effects the retrieve when fish are feeding on or near the surface. It’s thin diameter is helpful in cutting through wind while the head loads the rod quickly and shoots well. That is most of what I am looking for in a good striper line: infrequent knotting, fast load, effective shooting, cut through the wind, and in this case a steady slow sink.
Slow sinking tropical line that shoots well in windy conditions.
Verdict
The welded loops on the line have held up perfectly through hundreds of bass and albies landings. The smoke color is low key yet visible to angler and guide. The taper allows me to cast in the wind while quickly loading today’s consistently stiffer rods built for large flies, high winds, and high line speeds. Cortland checked all of the boxes on this tropical intermediate fly line. Their lineup of current fly lines is impressive. The Cortland Tropic Plus retails for $79.99.
