The Loon Outdoors Rogue Quickdraw Forceps are my favorite forceps for fly fishing. Sure, they don’t compete with high-end fishing pliers, but wow, the design just works well when you’re on the water. In fact, the Loon Rogue Quickdraw Forceps are so good they earned a spot in our best fly fishing gifts guide.
The obvious key design element is the built-in carabiner clip on the finger loop.
The carabiner clip lets you easily attach the Loon Outdoors Rogue Quickdraw Forceps to loops on your fishing vest, fishing packs and on your clothes. Wherever you need your forceps, there is a good chance you can find a way to use the carabiner to secure the Loon Outdoors Rogue Quickdraw Forceps while also keeping them handy.
Better yet, the Loon Outdoors Rogue Quickdraw Forceps have oversized thumb and finger loops, which means you can use the forceps with gloves on cold fishing days. The handle has been double-dipped in a spongy and grippy material. The coating ensures that you’re not fighting any slip when you turn the forceps at odd angles as you attempt to remove a fly from a fish.
Like most good forceps, you also get a hook eye-clearing needle and scissors. The jaws are flat for bending barbs down on hooks. The overall shape is good too — the pointed end makes it easy to get at smaller flies inside the mouths of toothy fish.
You might not know it from a glance, but the core steel is surgical quality stainless steel — it’s just covered with a matte black finish that’s designed to keep errant sun reflections from alerting fish. Incidentally, my set of forceps were a little stiff to open and close when I first got them — maybe due to this stealthy coating. Either way, a dab of 3-in-1 oil smoothed them right up, and they’ve aged just fine.
Loon Rogue Quickdraw Forceps: Plays Nice with Others
If these are your only forceps, you’re good to go. Where the Loon Outdoors Rogue Quickdraw Forceps really shine, though, is as a second pair of forceps that can ride wherever you need them as you change and use fly fishing gear. Here is how this works:
I’ve been using fly fishing sling packs, fishing backpacks and waist packs lately, testing out different designs and doing reviews. So what happens when you’re fishing is you have a sling pack, backpack or waist pack out of the way behind you. When you need your gear, you rotate the sling pack, spin the waist pack or remove the backpack. You tie on a new hopper-dropper rig or whatever, using all your gear, bending barbs down with your forceps, etc, and then put your pack back behind you.
And then you catch a fish. Your forceps are on the back of your sling pack, backpack or waist pack . . . but all you really need to do is remove a hook, not access your out-of-the-way pack. Because you can use the carabiner to clip the Quickdraw Forceps anywhere — for instance on your packs’ daisy chains or loops — they’re always handy for these short tasks. I’ve hung the Quickdraw Forceps from my pants pocket, from a belt loop, from the wading belt on my waders, and, of course, on the front straps of sling packs, backpacks and waist packs.
Because the Loon Rogue Quickdraw Forceps are so handy when you’re out on the water, Orvis has even gotten in on the Quickdraw — the company now offers an Orvis-branded version.
Loon Rogue Quickdraw Forceps Review: The Verdict
The Loon Outdoors Rogue Quickdraw Forceps aren’t the most finely manufactured forceps or fishing pliers that I’ve used or seen, but they’re very good with a great price-to-value ratio. Sure, you could lock the jaws of your existing forceps on a strap or pocket and you could buy another zinger to have more zinger-connected forceps available anywhere on your gear . . . or you could simply nab the Loon Outdoors Rogue Quickdraw Forceps, appreciate the design, and go fishing. Which is what I did.
