It’s 3 years ago since I first used this type of line. The two waters I was fishing at the time both had shock leader bans in place which was quite frustrating as both waters produced to long range tactics. It was after a conversation with fellow Free Spirit team member and mega caster Mark Hutchinson that I first became aware of a line Shimano had on the market aimed at the sea angler. This was basically a 220 metre spool with a tapered leader fused in the end so no knots whatsoever joining the main line and the leader.

This got me thinking and after a conversation with the fishery owners with the leader bans it became clear that it was the leader knot they had the problem with and the possibility of the said knot getting becoming jammed in weed. When I ran the idea by them of a leader fused to the line – thus no knot both seemed to be okay with this.

Soon I was filling the reels with multi coloured Shimano Speed Master Tapered Surf Line. I must admit I never did get used to the colour of this as it changed every few metres so you could be fishing with red, blue or yellow line on your reels – to be fair the leader part was clear.

This line caught me a few bonus fish for suddenly I was able to put full blooded casts in without the fear of crack offs. Like I say the colour wasn’t ideal running through total gin clear water – I mean how do you disguise red, blue or yellow line between you and the rig? Also to be fair because this line was made for the beach anglers hurling really big leads the diameter on the leader part was much greater than you really need or indeed want down to your rig.

Like I say I did catch a few bonus fish because of it though.

It was then whilst in conversation with Max Cottis of ACE (Advanced Carp Equipment) that I mentioned these leaders I’d been using. He looked quite surprised as he hadn’t realised there were any available then disappeared into his bivvy and produced some he had been working on ready for the ACE range.

These looked spot on to me – much more carp friendly in colour being a pleasant gravel type golden brown and with a leader much more sensible in diameter for the stress of casting typical carp leads. The taper between the running line and the leader was also quite short which I preferred.

Well 2 to 3 years I feel is more than enough time enough for a fair long term review. My distance rods still have the ACE Velocity Tapered Leaders on them so I guess that should speak volumes. I have found that the line handles much better when given the occasional  squirt with Kryston’s Greased Lightning. This keeps the line flowing real nice and stops it ‘drying’ and definitely allows it to run through the guides much more freely.

This line is a high performance product so needs looking after and regularly check for any slight damage. I’m in the habit these days of winding my lines back through my fingers after each cast to keep the line cleaner – doing this you do feel if any damage has been caused by the line sitting over underwater nasties. If you have a problem the the whole lot can be reversed on the spool as there is a leader on either end of the 300m (330 yard) spools.

Well, if you have a shock leader ban on the water you fish or perhaps you simply don’t trust yourself at tying leaders onto your main line then look no further – the solution is out there.

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