Sneaky Good Lines for Alpine Lakes

July 2025

On the banks of an alpine lake there are three common problems:

• I wish I could cast further
• I have no room to back cast
• Wind is limiting my casting

Enter Single Hand Spey Lines, and their applications for alpine lake fishing. Featuring integrated shooting heads downsized for your 5 weight fly rod, single hand spey lines are surprisingly effective when fishing alpine lakes. even in tight quarters. They can handle long distance roll casts, and Snap-T's like you'd expect from spey style lines, but they overhand cast like a dream on modern fast action rods.

Too often with standard floating lines, anglers feel the need to slowly work line further and further out while false casting - requiring an airstrip's worth of runway behind them. With single hand spey lines, once you lift the shooting head, one back cast (or well shaped D loop) is all you need to carry flies further with half the effort.

Always Rising Just Out of Reach

Over the past week, the Single Hand Spey line went head-to-head against our favorite standard lines and the full suite of conditions that complicate bank fishing, on a handful of alpine lakes in Southwestern Colorado.

Verdict: the heavier spey line cast further, cut through wind, and rolled better when room was limited. Dries, dry droppers, streamers, even light indicator rigs, reached rising fish farther from shore, better than traditional weight forward lines. Plus, longer leaders were easier to handle, adding depth to floating line applications, and opened opportunities to extend leaders into small-diameter tippet.

This replacement seriously threatens other floating lines we fish on lakes.

Nuance

Keep in mind: for pinpoint precision in calm conditions your traditional floating lines are still the better choice. But for prospecting on lakes, loading heavier rigs (dry/dropper, streamer, indicator), or in situations where trout are willing to move a bit to find your fly, one-handed spey options excel.

Favorites

If you still require some precision, check out Rio's offering: Single Hand Spey. This is the line we tested this past week.

If you're after pure distance, see Rio's Outbound Short.

There's also the Lake Chucker for heavy indicator rigs, and Rowley's Stillwater Line offering a tippet ring welded into the loop for easy rigging-one of our own swears by this line.

If you think you need a new rod, you might first try a new fly line.