speypages reviews

CND Gravity Point Spey Lines

Nobuo with a prime fall buck

The Gravity Point Spey Line is the latest development from Master Spey angler and rod designer Nobuo Nodera. Reputed to be one of the most highly engineered lines ever developed, the Gravity Point Spey (GPS) is a multi tip that features a unique distribution of grain weight to create efficient rod loading across a range of belly lengths. While designed as a fishing line, the GPS also excels as a distance casting line in the higher line weights for those anglers who really want to wind it up and fire it out there.

Last autumn Nobuo sent me the GPS lines to field test and review. Later, he joined me for a week of fall steelhead fishing where we put the GPS through its paces. I fished the GPS both as a full floating line and with a type III sinktip; Nobuo favored a 20ft intermediate tip.

Nobuo has varied the GPS  tip lengths to maximize energy transfer along the taper. This is unique among multi tip lines which usually feature tip sections of a uniform length (15ft is standard for most). GPS tips are 20ft floating and intermediate, and 15ft type 3, 4 and 6. The advantages of this design became immediately apparent with an afternoon wind blowing. Turnover at all distances was excellent. While no long belly line is perfect in a screaming headwind, I found the GPS in its full floating version to be one of the better long belly lines in a breeze, striking a good balance between presentation and the ability to turn big stuff over. 

Two line densities are featured depending on line weight. For 5/6 through 8/9 lines a low density, high floating material is used to enhance line control and presentation. In the 9/10, 10/11 and 11/12 lines a high density material is used to maximize distance potential.

Recently I met with Nobuo once again, this time at the Kaufmann's Spey Days, and he shared his thoughts about the design of the CND Gravity Point Spey Line:

Dana Sturn: Why did you develop the Gravity Point Spey Lines?

Nobuo Nodera: I wasn't 100% satisfied with currently available production Spey lines. For me, some lines were excellent in some sizes, but didn't perform to my expectations in others. So I wanted to try to develop a line that changed belly length as well as grain weight over various line sizes as well as matched the performance I had come to expect from custom designed Spey lines. I also thought it was important to match the belly length to the rod length. Many lighter line rods are also shorter rods, so I decided to make the lighter line sizes in shorter belly design, and gradually extend the belly length as the line weight and rod length increased.

I tried to make the smallest range of lines to cover the greatest range of performance. That's the whole idea behind the GPS lines. You don't need a 70ft belly on a Spey line for a 12ft rod, and a 60ft belly on an 11/12 Spey line for a 17ft rod is too short. With CND lines, I have tried to create a line that matches belly length and grain weight to rod length and maximize the efficiency and performance of the D Loop because I believe that the D Loop is the most important feature of a Spey cast.

It was also very important to me to make a line series that I would enjoy fishing. The primary purpose of the CND Gravity Point Spey Lines is to make a series of lines that are efficient and pleasurable to fish. I enjoy fishing these lines and I hope that others will enjoy them too.

Dana: Your new lines are already looped for sink tips, including your Intermediate and Type 3 full sinking belly lines. This is unique. Why did you do this?

Nobuo:  For the way that I like to fish, the best all around lines are interchangeable tip lines. This allows me to fish in any conditions. For example, one of my favorite combinations is to fish an intermediate belly line with a type 3 tip.  Or I can use a Type 3 belly and type 6 tip if I want a longer deep drift. These kinds of depth control are require for actual fishing conditions and so I developed a series of lines that would allow me to fish in any conditions that I encountered.

Dana: What tip lengths did you create?

Nobuo: The currently available interchangeable tip lengths were all 15ft; however, I found that in some situations a longer tip was better. This is especially true with the floating and intermediate tip section. With a floating or intermediate tip you need better casting qualities than shorter tip lengths. So I designed the Gravity Spey with a 20ft floating tip and a 20 ft intermediate tip. The type 3 and type 6 tips are both 15ft long. These combinations give the CND lines optimum casting qualities no matter what kind of tip you select.

Dana: But with a longer floating tip aren't you worried about too much line sticking on the water?

Nobuo: No. Many casters today believe that it is desirable to have just the leader and perhaps a few feet of line touch the water to form the anchor. However, in truth you can have many different lengths of line touch down. For example, the Scandinavian casters have only the leader form the anchor because they are using very short shooting head lines and very long leaders. However, the traditional Scottish Style casters such as Scott Mackenzie or Ian Gordon will anchor much more line--as much as 30 feet of line--on the water when casting with a long belly line. So when designing a Spey line for actual fishing conditions, one must engineer the line so that the line will anchor with an amount of line that makes it easy to lift from the water even with a heavy stick. The CND Gravity Point Spey Line is designed so that an angler can anchor 20ft of line. This is a good length because it will absorb the anchor lengths of casters of various skill levels. For example, some casters will anchor 10ft of line while others will anchor 30ft of line. A 20ft tip section allows for this variance.

Dana: How many steps are there in the Gravity Point Taper?

Nobuo: There are 5 steps plus the 20ft taper in the floating and intermediate GPS lines, plus 6 steps in the belly section.

Dana: Wow. That's one highly engineered line.

Nobuo: Yes, It took a lot of work and the excellent cooperation of RIO to help me make such a complex line. But I hope that anglers will find that our efforts paid off.

Dana: Based on my experience I'd say that they certainly did.

Nobuo: Thank you Dana-san. One other thing I'd like to mention to help people make the most of these lines is that I have developed a 2 step back taper in all the CND Spey lines. This allows anglers of varying skill levels to make the most of this line. A beginning caster can strip the line in until they are holding the color change while an experienced caster can place the color change at the rod tip. Both of these approaches will allow for efficient and effortless casting. The diagram on the back of the CND GPS line box illustrates these ideas.

Dana: Nobuo-san, I noticed that in situations where I needed to shorten the belly length (for example close casting quarters where I needed a smaller D Loop) I was still able to cast the GPS very well.

Nobuo: This is because of the compound back taper. Even if you need to shorten up to make a cast, there is still enough grain weight to load to the rod.  

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color: CND Specialist Green belly and cherry blossom running line

price: $110 - $115 USD

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test lines and images courtesy of Nobuo Nodera and CND Spey USA

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