Orvis Clearwater Spey & Switch Fly Rod

The Orvis Clearwater Spey & Switch Fly Rod is the rod that gets most anglers into two-handed casting without a four-figure decision attached to it. Swinging flies on a big river is a different sport from single-hand fishing: you cover water methodically with a long rod, a short heavy head and almost no backcast room, and the payoff is the hardest grab in fly fishing. Orvis rebuilt the Clearwater two-handers from the ground up in the Manchester, Vermont rod shop, giving each length its own purpose-built profile and action rather than stretching a trout taper, then built them overseas to hold the price down. The result is a medium-fast blank that loads deep enough to tell you where it is in the stroke instead of making you guess, which is the single most useful thing a first spey rod can do.

We stock this one in the two 7-weight models that cover the most water: an 11ft 4 piece switch, Orvis model 7110-4, and a 13ft 4 piece spey, model 7130-4. They share a line weight and nothing else about how they fish. The 11ft switch is the shorter, handier rod. It takes a lighter head, it is manageable from a boat or a brushy bank, and it is short enough to throw overhead with one hand when the run calls for it, so it doubles as a streamer and indicator rod between swings. The 13ft spey is the specialist. Two more feet of length lifts more line off the water, mends farther, and holds a controlled swing across a wide run in a way no switch rod can. If you fish medium rivers, wade close to your fish, or are still learning to set an anchor, start with the 11ft. If you are standing in big water where the whole game is line control at distance, and you are throwing heavy tips at winter steelhead and salmon, take the 13ft.

Blank

The Clearwater blank is mid-modulus graphite with a medium-fast action, and that pairing is doing deliberate work on a two-hander. Mid-modulus graphite recovers a little slower and flexes a little deeper than the high-modulus material in the premium Orvis rods, which is forgiving in exactly the places a new spey caster needs forgiveness. The rod loads visibly and audibly through the sweep, so a rushed stroke or an imperfect anchor, the two faults that wreck most early spey casts, still produces a cast instead of a pile. That same easy loading is what lets an experienced caster fish a full winter day without muscling every stroke. Because Orvis gave each model its own taper rather than scaling one blank across the range, the 11ft and the 13ft feel like separate rods rather than long and short versions of the same one. Both are 4 piece. The finish is black chrome with white accents, and every section carries a printed quick rod identifier, which sounds trivial until you are sorting four long sections of two different rods out of one truck bed in the dark.

Guides

Stripping Guides - A chrome frame with a ceramic insert handles the first and hardest contact point. The insert matters more here than it does on a single-hand rod, because every spey cast fires a long length of running line through that one guide under load. Ceramic is harder and slicker than a bare chromed frame, so more of the energy you built in the D-loop actually reaches the far bank, and the guide will not groove and start shredding line coating after a season of glacial silt and sand.

Snake Guides - Chrome snake guides run the length of the blank. Chrome plating is the durable, unglamorous standard for good reason: it resists the corrosion that comes with wet winters and tidewater, it adds almost no weight out toward the tip where weight costs the most on a 13ft rod, and it takes the beating of loop-to-loop connections and sink tips clattering through on the retrieve.

Reel Seat

The reel seat is full black nickel aluminum, machined as a single unit rather than built around a wood insert. That is the correct call on a two-hander at this price. Aluminum stays light and shrugs off corrosion, there is nothing to swell or check after months of wet hands and rain, and it clamps a heavy spey reel down and keeps it there through thousands of casts, where softer hardware works loose across a day. The black nickel finish also kills reflection, which is worth something on low clear winter water. Ahead of the seat is a full two-handed cork grip, and Orvis fits composite material to the tip of the foregrip on the two-handed models. That tip is the highest-wear spot on a spey rod, taking the hand pressure of every sweep and every rod-down rest on gravel, and composite holds up where soft cork starts pitting.

Rod Tube

The rod ships in a gray Cordura rod tube. On a 13ft four-piece the case is not an afterthought: the sections are long, and a Cordura-covered tube protects them without the weight and the dented-lid failure mode of a bare aluminum tube, which matters when the rod is already the most awkward thing in your luggage.

Warranty

The Clearwater carries the Orvis 25-Year Guarantee. Orvis will repair a broken Clearwater rod within 25 years of purchase, and if it cannot be repaired they replace it with a newer model of equal or greater value. Coverage is not limited to manufacturing defects, so breakage from normal fishing and from the ordinary accidents that actually kill rods is handled the same way. There is a $60 processing fee per rod, which covers materials, labor and return shipping, and Orvis offers an optional prepaid inbound shipping label for $12.95 within the US. The guarantee runs to the original owner only and proof of purchase may be requested, so keep your receipt. Loss and theft are not covered.

More Info

• Rod Action: Medium-fast
• Best For: Swinging wet flies, soft hackles, streamers and intruders on large rivers; steelhead, salmon and big-water trout
• Grip Style: Full two-handed cork spey grip with composite at the tip of the foregrip
• Ability Level: Beginner to Intermediate
• Line Weight Range: 7wt in both models
• Models: 7wt 11ft 4 piece switch (Orvis 7110-4) and 7wt 13ft 4 piece spey (Orvis 7130-4)
• Grain Windows: 11ft switch, 360-440gr Skagit and about 360gr Scandi; 13ft spey, 440-520gr Skagit and about 450gr Scandi, per the Orvis two-handed rod and line chart
• Recommended Sink Tips: 80-120gr on the 11ft switch, 120gr on the 13ft spey
• Blank: Mid-modulus graphite, black chrome with white accents

Recommended Lines

Two-handed rods are rated in grains, not just line weights, and these two models do not take the same head, so buy to the grain number rather than to the 7wt printed on the blank. Orvis puts the 11ft switch at 360-440 grains of Skagit and roughly 360 grains of Scandi, and the 13ft spey at 440-520 grains of Skagit and roughly 450 grains of Scandi. For the heavy tip and big fly half of that, the Rio Elite Skagit MAX Launch Shooting Head covers both rods and is the safest single answer: its rear-loaded taper loads a medium-fast blank deep and turns a sink tip over cleanly, in 400gr or 425gr on the 11ft and 450gr through 525gr on the 13ft. If the 11ft switch is your rod and you want something lighter and quicker for smaller water and light tips, the Scientific Anglers Spey Lite Skagit Head tops out at 420gr and is built specifically for lightweight two-handed work. For floating-line swings with soft hackles and smaller streamers once the water warms, the Rio Elite Scandi Body Shooting Head is the Scandi side of the system, in 350gr or 375gr for the 11ft and 435gr or 470gr for the 13ft. All three are shooting heads rather than integrated lines, so budget for a running line as well; Orvis specifies a 0.031 inch running line for both of these models.