T & T 1611 line recommendations

[Justadd Water]

I have a big ol‘ Thomas & Thomas 3 piece 16 ft 11 weight Spey rod. I bought it a few years ago and never got around to using it. Recently posted it for sale on another site but, no bites so I may as well line it up. It could be useful for Steelhead and Salmon on the Snake or Clearwater.

So what modern line would be a good fit? I’ve seen old posts recommending long belly Spey lines that had much higher grain weight than the modern Rio Intouch Long Head Spey. Some of the older 11 wt lines were up to 1500 gr compared with Rio’s 10/11 which is only 840 gr. I don’t want to waste 130 bucks on the Rio line if it’s too light. Any advice?

 

[Dan Page]

I had the 15' version a very long time ago and in that era things were not sorted out so well and line designation was not consistent between makers. I was way overloading the rod making casting much more challenging. If I had my old rod now I'd consider the Nextcast FF70 10/11 --870 gr. or the Nexctast 16+ --880 gr. Would be great to borrow a line or two and experiment, but not likely to find many using such heavy lines these days.
Good luck!

 

[Justadd Water]

Thank you, Dan. I had forgotten about Nextcast. It looks like the FF70 is out of stock but, I’ll keep an eye out for it

 

[greenriver]

call the folks at the Red Shed Fly Shop in Peck UT at 208-486-6098. They will recommend and let you test cast lines.

 

[O' Clarkii Stomias]

Red Shed is in Peck, Idaho. Call Poppy and demo the Gaelforce Equalizer 73' and 83' lines in 10/11. You won't be disappointed. The rod likes some serious grain weight.