Scientific Anglers Magnitude Line Review - Clear Tip and Full Clear Floating Fly Lines - New for 2024!

Scientific Anglers spent several years developing these new Magnitude clear tip and fully clear floating fly lines. Why do I emphasize "Floating" in the title? You get points if you already know the answer. Until now, very few fly lines with clear tips, or fully clear lines, were available in Full Floating, most were either Intermediate tip or full Intermediate and not really that clear either. Not anymore. Scientific Anglers spent several years developing these new Magnitude lines and they are fantastic.

I have now cast these new Magnitude lines on the new Orvis Helios (which I just reviewed but couldn't tell anyone about the lines yet, it was still a secret). Also naturally the newest Winston Air 2 MAX, which these lines also worked great with. I did cast a little on my Scott Sector but I have not had tons of time since I was so busy doing the Orvis Helios review and testing recently. 

So, let's dive into what new options SA released: 

There are four familiar tapers here, everything is either Grand Slam, Bonefish Plus, Infinity Salt, or Tarpon. The new lines from those four tapers come in two flavors, Smooth or Textured, just like the Amplitude series, and also two "colors" I guess, if Clear is a color? So either Clear Tip or Full Clear line, and as I said, all full floating. That's great because I hate using intermediate clear tips when what I actually needed was a damn floating clear tip. Pros are going to go nuts for these new lines. Intermediate and beginner fishermen and women will appreciate the finesse and stealth these new clear tips will provide. 

Pricing has increased, I can't lie to you. These lines start at $149.95 and go up to $179.95 for the Textured flavors. Don't despair, these are great lines for reasons beyond just the clear aspect. Chemically, these are entirely new lines meant to become the new top offerings from Scientific Anglers, the very best series they make. Much more than just clear tips, although they chose to debut this new ultra-premium line technology with additional benefits to customers. I am not going to try to pronounce the techno-marketing words but believe me when I tell you these new lines feel excellent.

Benefits of a clear tip line (or fully clear line) include the obvious: reduced visibility to fish. But less obvious to many customers, you can fish a shorter leader! Why is this great? Better accuracy at close range, for one. Great for fishing around docks, mangroves or anything else you might get caught on. And this line also helps with paranoia some customers have about a fish seeing their fly line (they won't) - the reality is fish feel vibrations with their lateral line and usually the visibility is not adequate for them to actually see your line until it is very close. Even when water appears clear to you on the surface it is usually not the best visibility underwater (trust me on this one). I may not be selling you on the benefits but as I explain, if it gives you the slightest edge or a few more catches that would have been misses, people may consider it worthwhile. It certainly can't hurt, there is no downside with the clear tip lines. Fully clear lines, however, are a big pain and I do not recommend them for beginners. They are really hard to see from any distance. If you know what you are doing, these can be a big help in specific situations but they aren't what most people need.

I have had many thousands of dollars worth of these new lines on order for quite awhile and I was very excited to get the shipping notification from SA. If you can't tell, I was pretty hyped from what I was reading in the pdf first provided by Scientific Anglers for dealers (me) to order the lines from. Those of you who know me are aware I put a lot of money into testing rods, reels, and fly lines. It's not every day a new saltwater line comes out, let alone an ENTIRE NEW SERIES!

So, let's dive into what new options SA released: 

There are familiar tapers here, everything is either Grand Slam, Bonefish Plus, Infinity Salt, or Tarpon. So that's very familiar to me, I already have a ton of those (in the "regular" Amplitude Smooth and Textured) around at all times. The new lines from those four textures come in two flavors, Smooth or Textured, just like Amplitude series, and also two "colors" I guess, if Clear is a color? So either Clear Tip or Full Clear line, and as I said, all full floating. That's great because I hate using intermediate clear tips when what I actually needed was a damn floating clear tip. Pros are going to go nuts for these new lines. Intermediate and beginner fishermen and women will appreciate the finesse and stealth these new clear tips will provide. 

Now that you know the options, let me tell you how I mainly ordered these. I thought about it for a long time, and roughly my customers seem to be split 50/50 on Smooth vs Textured, so that's how I divided it. I then bought a TON of Bonefish PLUS (a very new and excellent taper SA just released in the regular Amplitude series) and of course Grand Slam because I think those will be the big sellers, along with a fair amount of Tarpon line too. I like Infinity Salt personally, but it doesn't sell nearly as much as Grand Slam and now Bonefish Plus fills that role for 7/8/9wt Bonefish applications. So, I am sure I will be totally wrong and it will sell more in this clear tip or full clear option. But anyway, I am very curious to see what customers decide out of these options.

As always, guys, you can ask me questions via phone or email and I am more than happy to assist you in picking the right line for your next trip.