This is a six-weight so it’s aimed at stillwaters, and decked out in a two-tone blue livery, below #6 XS-Plus Hi-Floats wear two-tone olive and are listed as river lines.

With its pale blue head and dark blue running line the #6 looks a little unusual. Up a rod and in the air or on the water it looks absolutely fine. The bold colour contrast works well, no doubt at all where the head ends and the running line starts.

The figures say this has a 42.5ft head, 8.5ft front taper, 23ft belly and 11ft rear taper. In my book, that adds up to a typical modern WF head length. Whether my casting has become used to that length or that length suits me I really can’t say. What I can say is the Snowbee just casts well, get the pale head section moving nice and fast then let go (at exactly the right time, of course – this is a skill thing you know!) The shoot is clean and smooth, turnover is sweet and my only niggle is why can’t the reservoir version of this XS be more than 90ft. The backing knot is all that stops this going well over 30 yards.

I bought a couple of the very first Snowbee XS (Prestige) lines; very supple, smooth lines. As I recall those had quite delicate tips and fine running line. If I trust my memory (and I really don’t) Snowbee seems to me to have opted for slight changes. The tip of this line turns with just a hint of ‘pop’ ideal for tapered leaders, the running line seems a fraction fatter than I recall so I can ‘carry’ a little more than the original XS. For some reason the coating on the running line also seems to have a texture I don’t recall on earlier lines. From the spool this XS seems a little less supple, yet after a couple of casts it feels right: supple, no noticeable coil-memory.

So, apart from the obvious colour changes I’d guess Snowbee has tweaked the original design. Maybe a hint more beef to the tip, a fractionally stiffer coating – if anything, in terms of casting, this is better than the XS lines I bought way back. Plus, according to Snowbee, this version of the XS floats better. It certainly floats well but it is very hard for me to say if this does float better since the nylon leaders I use are more dense than water so they want to sink the tip of any floating fly line.

As it stands, this generation of the XS is a quite excellent general purpose floating line.