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Kelly Galloup is every big fish’s worst nightmare. His streamer techniques have made us all think twice about what and how a trophy trout eats. And these unconventional techniques would not be complete without an unconventional line. With Kelly’s input and expertise, we created the Streamer Express Long – a revolutionary line made to deliver the biggest flies to the biggest fish in the river. We’ve asked Kelly to describe how and why a new line was necessary for his style of fishing. After all, who better qualified to describe it than the expert himself?

I designed the Streamer Express Long lines for a specific style of fishing—you know: fish with teeth big enough to bite back. The style of streamer fishing I do often evolves pretty big flies (from four to seven inches long) and I try to hit every three feet of shore or structure or lane on the entire river. Because we do so much fast action casting, we try not to build too much weight into the flies. Even unweighted, a six inch fly is going to be heavy enough to make it hard to pick up. That is, unless your line is perfectly matched to the job. I prefer the line to carry the fly easily and then to take that fly to the depth I choose. I seldom fish deeper than two feet, but I want to be able to cast the fly and establish the depth I need, (which may be anywhere from six inches to three feet down). When I start my fast-paced retrieve, I want the fly to be where I decide and to stay there all the way back to the end of the retrieve. One of the biggest problems with a lot of sink-tip lines is the floating portion of the line. You see, when you start your retrieve, the sinking line and the fly tend to move up towards the surface, which means you’re going to lose control of the fly. When SA and I teamed up, we were after the ultimate streamer line and that is what we have designed. I wanted a line that sank fast but was not heavy. Thanks to an all-new core, which has has all the advantages of mono without the memory, that became possible. This small core allowed us to make a thin profile line which sinks fast and carries the big flies perfectly. The taper is 100% new, and most importantly, it was designed after years of using other lines which had flaws that I felt were never addressed. Old-model sinking lines tended to get coiled up and would often end up knotting and then delaminating. This generally happened around the 35 foot range on the line. To eliminate this problem, I designed the Streamer Express Long series in three parts: First, the line has a thirty feet front taper, which is full-sinking. Then (to stop the tangles I noticed with other lines), I opted to build the next ten feet in a intermediate-sink. I’m happy to say that stopped all the tangles. Finally, for the rear taper of the line, I went to an increased diameter “handling line” for ten feet. This special back taper allows the angler to nail that really long cast. The thicker handling section also lets you get a hold on the line and really power your hauls.