Airflo Salt Clear Tip Line Review - Flats Universal Flats & Tactical Flats Taper Fly Lines for Saltwater - New for 2023!
The newest award-winning fly lines to come out this year (early 2023) are saltwater clear tip floating lines from Airflo and Rio. These are intended to allow a stealthier approach to flats fishing for wary species like Bonefish & Permit. Airflo has based this line on their other current taper options for saltwater: Flats Universal and Flats Tactical. This new line has a very long official name and you can check it out here: Airflo Superflo Ridge 2.0 Flats Universal Taper 9' Clear Tip Floating Line and as the name suggests, this one is intended as the clear-tipped version of Universal Flats Taper. Same concept applies to the "Tactical Taper" version, just that has a longer clear tip at 12ft vs the Universal's 9ft. Not that big of a deal. I already loved both original versions so I was sure the clear tip would be awesome and so far, it has been great. Note that I mainly focus on 8wt line to benchmark it for saltwater purposes but I do test on a variety of fly rods.
These are excellent lines, but at $150 it is starting to get a bit ridiculous. These are a bit more complex to make but that is steep considering A.) Nobody actually "needs" these lines, regular floating lines work completely fine in saltwater and B.) Competitors are between $100-$130 typically and work very well already. So, are you gaining much for the extra $20-$50 over your normal fly line? I guess. You can use shorter leaders so that is a big bonus if you want more precise presentation. Still, as good as these lines are, it is a marginal difference if any from other flats line options. Don't get me wrong, these are excellent and I am keeping one since for me it's a business expense, but don't throw away your regular Universal Flats Taper for this one necessarily. This is a new line for the guy who already owns everything else, and the pricing reflects that target audience.
