This is the latest generation of the Cortland Dyna-Tip, a concept which Cortland devised to overcome that sinking feeling so many of us have experienced when the tip section of our floating line fails to float. Put simply, the front few feet of a Dyna-Tip has a lower density coating so the tip of the line floats well.

So, this line has a 3ft white portion at the tip, the rest of the line is pale olive. The profile shows an 8ft front taper, 16ft belly, 25ft rear taper followed by 40ft of running line. That’s a 49ft head, which is at the longer end of the spectrum for general purpose lines. The long rear taper means this handles like it has a shorter head. Pushing the balance, the bulk of the mass, towards the tip is said to ‘delay turnover’ the idea being when I make a loop the bulk of the mass is behind the loop front so the loop takes longer to straighten. That's the theory anyway.

Casting this line, the long rear taper gives me flexibility, I can shoot line effectively with a few feet of rear taper outside the tip-ring and of course for distance I can false-cast the line with the whole head outside the tip. Cortland have deliberately formulated the coating so this is not an utterly limp line, it feels like it has a degree of hardness and stiffness. When I cast, that translates into cleaner shoot and at the extreme it helps me false cast with a few yards of running line outside the tip and gives me my longest casts.

It seems to be this line presents a fly delicately, I feel I have trouble forcing the tip to kick over.

I expected to see the coating in that loop suffer and break up, but nothing wrong with it so far. On water, in some light conditions, I can see the white tip-section, but not a great deal better than the rest of the line.

Overall, this is a smooth, long casting line which presents delicately, with a tip designed to float higher. Nothing there I can complain about – in fact, this is a damned good line.