The Trout Stalker is a new offering in Scientific Angler’s Mastery Textured Series. They bill it as an all around trout line but I think we all know that anything that has the word “Stalker” in it is meant for one thing: Dry fly action. Being the end of December, there weren’t many chances to stalk and cast to steadily rising fish. However, I was able to put the line through its paces and even managed to raise a few fish to tiny dries.

I think the first thing that needs to be mentioned is SA’s texturing technology. SA introduced its Mastery Textured Series as the middle ground between its Sharkskin and Mastery smooth line series. I’d fished a few Sharkskin lines in the salt and found the same drawback that everybody else did. The line was brutal on your hands when you hooked any fast-moving fish. I also found the same bonuses. It shot line well, it was slick with little memory, and it cast easily. When SA first came out with the Mastery Textured series I was beyond pumped. With a small change in the shape of the texture patterns, SA created a line that still shot well, held little memory, and also didn’t leave your hands with industrial sized paper cuts that the saltwater always seemed to find. I was sold. I still am. So much so that, as of now, I even fish textured lines in freshwater situations.

The Trout Stalker boasts an extremely gradual front end taper. There is a total length of nearly 30 feet between the tip of the fly line and the beginning of its rear taper. If you compare this to a more radical taper like SA’s Titan Taper which has a total of only 12 between its front taper and belly, and you can see how gradual the Trout Stalker is. This results in a smooth-casting fly line that unrolls smoothly before alighting gently on the water…exactly what the dry fly crowd is looking for.

While I’m touting this line as a dry fly lover’s dream, don’t think that it can’t do other things too. While fishing this line in a 4 weight, I was still able to toss single nymphs rigs under a tiny indicator. The line itself was able to comfortable turn over flies that ranged from size 22 all the way down to 14, the biggest I had in my box. While it can handle certain setups, I did find it to be a little light for serious dry-dropper use. If you feel like fishing dry-dropper setups with this line, it will pay to be overly patient with your casting stroke.

All in all, this is a fly line that I can’t wait to be using during the big springtime hatches. It will be a mainstay on my trout setups anywhere that a rising fish can be found.
Click here to view the SA Textured Trout Stalker Line