Here's a fine shot of the 'swing' which is the middle section of the Spey cast between the 'lift' and the 'power stroke'. Look how perfectly taut the salmon fly line is for perfect energy transfer and full fly line energy power retention. This fantastic action photograph was captured by at the Meetings Pool on the Lower Kinnaird salmon beat near Dunkeld. I was working as a professional salmon fly fishing instructor when this fine shot was taken on the River Tay.

Here's my own trusted silver friend of 20 years. This is a Van Staal C-vex 9-11 salmon fly reel with the 9/10 spool fitted paired up with the brilliant Monteith 9/10 Speycaster Multi System fly line. These 2 items fished of my bespoke built Bruce & Walker 16ft 9/10 Spey rod is Spey casting perfection and that's my firm professional opinion. As a professional Scottish salmon fishing guide you need to have quality salmon fishing equipment like this fly reel.

This was my Monteith Sunk line salmon fly fishing system which was a sunk line Speyline that allowed anglers to fish their fly as deep as necessary. This Speyline Multi tip system came with a pouch of braided core sink tips of varying sink rates as you can see here.

This full floating Speyline fly rod outfit with an added 15ft sink tip was the perfect combination to hook this fine fresh run Spring salmon which was caught near Dunkeld on the River Tay by myself while working in May as a salmon fly fishing guide.

This lovely tapered salmon Spey line was designed to turn over fast sinking tips with ease where other floating main belly lines would struggle. This line system came with 8 tips to cover all salmon fly fishing applications and was a firm favourite with thousands of UK salmon fishers.

Salmon Fly Lines

By Jock Monteith 27th November 2017

There's so much more to this huge topic than most purchasers of salmon fly lines or even tackle dealers understand.

Only those who are fully engaged in salmon fly fishing as a career will be aware of the following points I'm about to raise as they will also have likely been involved in prototype design and fly line testing at some point in their professional careers.

Here's professional salmon fishing guide Jock Monteith demonstrating the single Spey right hand up cast with his Graham of Menteith tartan kilt and lovat green Tweed jacket. The blue fishing hut across the river is the Newtyle Beat fishing hut near Dunkeld where Jock served as Head Ghillie for a decade. This shot was taken at the neck of the Newtyle Beat's Boil Pool.

The Monteith Multi Tip Salmon Fly Line

The above Monteith Multi Tip salmon fly line actually won the 'most popular Spey line' award on the UK's main salmon fishing forum shortly after this masterpiece was launched in 2006. The reason this happened was solely because there was 18 months between the concept and the finished article and multiple re-adjusting of prototype tapers throughout that period.

Here's Jock Monteith amidst a Spey casting lesson on the River Tay under the historic Telford Bridge demonstrating perfect D Loop loading with the single Spey cast. The traditional Spey cast is the most effective and satisfying casts. This photo was taken by local Dunkeld photographer Charlie MacDonald. Jock is wearing his Graham of Menteith tartan kilt while demonstrating Spey cast with his 15ft Monteith salmon fly rod.

Salmon Fly Line Design

The simple fact this happened was that a dangerously focussed and borderline obsessed fly fishing mind was fully engaged in an attempt to create a product that would be totally appreciated by the Scottish salmon fly fishers. At that time the Rio Windcutter was the leading product and whether they admit it or not they mysteriously changed their product from an ugly short rear taper to a 12ft rear taper to match other features of my superior product shortly thereafter.

Salmon Fishing Sink Tips

I designed registered the three length use feature of this product with the Patent Office and built in factory welded loops to save salmon anglers the 'hassle' of having to spend £125 to then have to go and fix braided loops on their sinking tips which had been the case at that time with Rio. I also made sure that there was enough bulk at the front end of this line to turn over with 'authority' any of the fly line tips that were supplied with this line system.

This was my Monteith Sunk line salmon fly fishing system which was a sunk line Speyline that allowed salmon anglers to fish their fly as deep as necessary. This Speyline Multi tip system came with a pouch of braided core sink tips of varying sink rates which were carefully thought out by myself while working as a professional River Tay salmon fishing guide.

Salmon Fly Line Turnover

This beefed up front end feature alone went down a treat with many thousands of salmon fly fishers as for the first time anglers had an elegantly tapered Spey line that could turn over proper braided core tapered & balanced sink tips without having to cut back the front end of their full floating & delicately front tapered Spey lines. I recall on the Tay many anglers who came to fish with me (before they even wet a fly) their reel line colour had changed from yellow to sky blue making the fishing hut bin always full of short yellow pvc strands!

The Monteith Speycaster salmon fly line was an amazing multi use product that sold thousand on the riverbanks of Scotland without the dealer channel being involved. This line is still a firm favourite for myself and many other salmon fishers and hopefully we'll be able to have more manufactured in the not too distant future.

Salmon Fly Line Technology

Airflo at that time were just in the process of developing ground breaking fly line technology following years of producing lines that had core memory issues. Richard Wothers who is still in charge of design & production in Brecon was amazing to deal with all through the process of creating this line. All the latest technology that Airflo had developed was offered and was therefore incorporated into this ground breaking product. Tough as nails polyurethane replaced soft and easily damaged PVC along with a low stretch braided core which took the 'elastic band' effect out of the line and help assist long range effective hooking and retain line energy.

Learning to use your left non dominant hand with a Scottish Spey cast opens up a much bigger tactical range for your salmon fishing approach. This salmon fishing tour angler was learning how to do this from his professional salmon fly fishing instructor on the Oak Tree Pool near Meikleour on the River Tay.

Buying A Salmon Speyline

Even after all these years I still get emails from anglers wanting to buy new lines and new sinking tips even though I don't carry stock these days. The next time you consider a salmon fly line think about other design aspects such as arial elegance & sub surface profile. Even the black tube head marker on this fly line was intentionally designed to click the top rod ring on fishing days where the sun was in your eyes as a 12 inch head marker sleeve represents 2 inches to the eye when pointed downstream in bright light conditions.

Here's a salmon fly fisher out in a traditional River Tay coble boat covering the Cathedral Stream salmon pool with a fly rod. This is a great area for a resting salmon to be located that's navigated up through the fast water below the bridge. The Telford Bridge you can see in the shot is over 200 years old and joins the village of Birnam to the town of Dunkeld.

Salmon Fishing Shooting Heads

The shooting head era was the only reason I stopped a few years ago supplying these beautiful & well thought out salmon fly lines. The shooting heads although effective are horrible in the air and difficult to control your salmon fly with at range due to the super thin and less manageable running line that accompanies them. The arial performance of these nasty things is often as elegant as a 'brick on a string' however the low price point of £40 a head plus your running line at the same price again tricked the masses into believing this was a cheaper option even though it definitely was not by the time enough weighted heads were purchased.

Relaunching The Monteith Speylines

Don't be surprised if the product is relaunched in the not too distant future with the exact same original main body line specification as before but this time with 3 main 12ft sink tips instead of 8 tips as before. I'll leave it to the fly fishers to decide which if any additional tips from 10ft to 20ft at £15 per tip they'd like to purchase for a specific river's salmon pool application. The 3 main 12ft tips will allow me to retail this 'relaunched' Speyline product at a 'competitive' RRP with a serious price story against 'shooting heads' which will also cover most salmon fishing 'fly depth' applications.