Test Fired: Airflo Depth Finder Quick Max

With the new fishing season approaching, if you are anything like me you'll be looking forward to getting even with a few that gave you the slip last season and gearing up for the prospect of new areas to fish. You'll also be inspecting your existing tackle with the anticipation of opening day coming up fast. One important item which badly affects fishing success when it becomes worn is your floating fly line. Did yours reach its used-by date toward the end of last season, if so you probably promised yourself a new one for October 1. The decision of which flyline to choose is quite exciting as technology keeps improving and therefore any of the lines selected to feature in this catalogue are state of the art and sure to enhance your fishing experience.

Which line to choose has been made a little easier though through a special offer the new Airflo distributor is making to us. If choosing a new Ridge Line Presentation or Nymph Taper floating line at Hunting & Fishing New Zealand, you qualify to add an Airflo Sinking Depth Master line valued at $139-99 to your arsenal for just $10-00!

YEAH, WHY BOTHER WITH A SINKING LINE? - I hear you ask! The simple answer is to catch more fish and maybe some of those deep water lunkers that have proven difficult in the past. Just by presenting your fly in a different manner at a more effective depth you cover hard to reach trout lies and induce a take from a shy or smart fish that could turn out to be one of the best of the season (as it did for me last year) or even the fish of a lifetime.

Whether you have a preference for lake or river fishing, by using a sinking line it adds a new dimension for deep water, night fishing, windy days, turbulent water, downstream lies that you can only approach from above and so on. In fact the reasons to have a sinking line are endless. If stalking a lake edge is your thing, then having a line that gets that lure, smelt fly or damsel fly down over that drop off when the fish just don't seem to be cruising the edge can also be extremely successful. On rivers while working my way up stream I pick out likely lies that I can't seem to get the depth to fish to with my floating line. Then on my return downstream I fish to these with a sinking line across and down. It was this method that came up trumps for me recently on a trip to one of my favourite rivers, it turned an average days fishing into one of the most enjoyable for the year.

Every successful fly fisher I meet loves to try new techniques and this is one of the reasons they do better than the average angler. My advice if you want to catch more fish therefore is to try something new and cover more options. By adding a sinking line to the kit for 2008 you'll be surprised at the amount of times you will break it out and catch fish you may have never had a chance of hooking into otherwise.

Even at their regular price I can highly recommend the new Airflo Depth Finder range. Airflow sinking lines have unrivalled hook setting capabilities due to the highly sensitive low stretch mono core for great detection and positive hook-ups. In my opinion Airflow sets the standard for sinking lines and they were the first company to create a range of sinking lines with Density Compensation and still are the only company to offer a true gradual density compensation throughout the entire length of the line - giving you the truest direct sink path possible. In addition, Airflo sinking lines offer a non over-lapping Standardised Sink Rate (SSR) creating less sag and much more sensitivity with the tip sinking first then the mid section causing less of a belly in the line.