Cortland Tropic Plus Tarpon Fly line Review, Fly Fishing for redfish in Tampa Bay

Monday Feb 8th 2010

Whew!, I don’ t know about  any of you guys but … have you ever get the feelings sometimes that you are being pulled in so many different directions you are just don’t know what to do.  The last few days between personal stuff, ,videos, photos, deadlines, it has my head spinning.  Between all the traveling lately, I haven’t been on the water just to plain old fish in quite a long time. I’m always looking to shoot videos, photos, networking etc.

Well today I got a call from Tom of Wanganchor.com about getting out and throwing the fly rod around for some redfish. the winds were light and the skies were fairly clear. Since I’ve been wanting to test out some of the Cortland lines I decided to spool up the Nautilus with the Cortland Tropic Plus Tarpon . I have been messing around with it in the empty grass lot (Grass so you don’t scratch up your fly line, wet grass is preferred. DO NOT practice on concrete. Yes I found out the hard way ) and I was really pleased on how it was casting for me.  I had messed around a little bit with the Cortland Crystal but wasn’t too thrilled with the memory it was holding. (People tell me I need to use it in the summer when it’s hot out). The Tropic Plus though, even with the air temp at 55 degrees the line was not coiling up for me like I expected. Since the  name says “tropical” I figured it was a summer line and would had issues with the lower temperature,  but I was pleasantly surprised.

The line was very slick, more slick than the Rio Clouser taper,  Tom had on his rod.(yes all new lines are slick, the Rio was was new as well)  The memory was minimal even with the cooler air temperature. I did not bother to stretch the line and tangles were very minimal. I originally  had about a 15′ leader on there with a heavy red fish fly and admittedly I had issues turn it over consistently.  Once I cut it back to about 9′ I had no problems turning it over. The leader was a simple slim beauty and albright knot combo, 50lb to 30lb to 20lb test.

Punching into the light winds wasn’t a problem with the 10wt(yeah I know over kill for reds but I really wanted to try this combo today).  If  you fish Florida waters and is looking for a well balanced line for bigger fish, you need to give it try. This one is staying on the reel for me. The Crystal however is yet to be determine. I will let you know this summer. :)

Oh about the fishing, I almost forgot. Tom and I got on the redfish fairly quickly at Tom’s secret spot.  Tom poled me on a pod of reds .. problem is neither of use knew the reds were there before they spooked. I let the fly sit and luckily the second half of the pod ate the Karnack fly Tom tied up for us. At the end of the day we got 3 to the boat. It would have been 4 but  due to my embarrassingly bad knot tying(yes, curly tail) one red fish took one of the Karnack home with him.

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