LONG HAUL LINE

Mick Kaksa covers a new fly line from JM Gillies.

I’ve been one of the lucky ones, in that I’ve been using a prototype of the Gillies Long Haul Line (LHL), made by Cort-land, for the last 12 months or so. It was the talk of the town at the Sandown fly expo last year, winning the distance casting event-I didn’t think I was going to get the thing back.

As the name suggests it is a distance casting line. The head length on the 4 to 6-weight lines is 42 feet, and 44 feet on 7 and 8-weight models. The overall line lengths are 27 metres (90 feet). The Long Haul is available as a floating line only.

A great feature of the LHL is that the head is olive green whereas the running line is buckskin in colour. This simplifies things for those who have trouble finding where the head starts on a normal weight forward fly line—the sweet spot is marked out for us.

I first used the line for ‘flogging’ on local Victorian lakes, trying to cover as much water as possible and as fast as I could. And this thing shoots a mile with the help of a very thin running line, and the braided dacron core help s to eliminate line memory.

One afternoon I was caught out with a midge rise in progress and unable to change lines, so I stuck with the Long Haul. The short cast and delicate presentations required were no problem at all. The Long Haul Line performed a lot better than I had expected, and certainly no worse than any other line I own.

Don’t be fooled by the name. The Gillies Long Haul Line is as good for waist deep wade-polaroiding or fishing up a little stream, but it is a stand out for extra distance without having to have too much line in the air.

Priced at $84.95 the Long Haul Line is distributed by JM Gillies: 03 9646 4745 or email sales@jmgillies.com.au.