Category: Gear

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Valentinekara

So my Valentines Day present was in my office chair when I got home last night. We were never much good at deferral. Kris gave me a Tenkara rod. I went ahead and gave her her present. I gave her a Tenkara rod. I think there was a little bit of Gift of the Magi business going on: She had decided that if I wanted a long rod for nymphing, I should try a Tenkara.  I kept finding Tenkara YouTube videos cued up on my office computer, so I decided she must want a Tenkara rod.  She got a TFO from Gordy & Sons, I got a Tenkara USA from Orvis. I’m sure there’s a big difference.

In the meantime we’re preparing for Florida and spring training, a bit more than a week away.  Usually I read a baseball book for spring training.  This year I’m rewatching the World Series games that the Astros won.  There were four of them.  Four out of seven.

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Nymphing Rod Fever

I’ve got fly rod fever.  I’ve been reading Dynamic Nymphing, and I’m not sure how I’ve survived without a 10′ rod.  I need a nymphing rod. It’s a wonder that I’ve ever successfully mended a line, and maybe I haven’t. That set me off on an internet search where I learned many things but most of all that what I need is not just a 10′ rod, but a 3 weight rod.

Now I have an old 3 weight somewhere that I bought many many years ago.  It’s a two-piece.   I may have even used it once. Are two-pieces back in vogue yet?

The reason I need a 3 weight is because each of those subtle takes I’m going to be feeling will just not telegraph well through the 6 weight that I had settled on–mostly because a have a surplus of 6 weight reels.  So when I surveyed the rod-makers websites, Hardy, Thomas & Thomas, Orvis, Winston, Scott, all the usual suspects, plus Fenwick and St. Croix, seemed to make exactly what I needed to catch fish.

Yesterday when I couldn’t stand it any longer I bailed work a bit early and started trolling shops.  I made it first to Gordy & Sons, which is elegant, spacious, and new.  It’s a three-story purpose-built temple that worships some kind of British custom shotgun and also sells high-end fly fishing gear.  They keep an Islamoralda skiff down in the parking area just to prove  they’re serious.  They have a casting pond.  They have cigars and whisky.

They also have Scotts and Winstons.  “We sell a lot of the Winstons.”  Marcus said they were likely to have a 3wt. upstairs.

I went from there to Bayou City Angler, but they were better than Gordy at spotting a man with the fever and had me out in the parking lot casting in a trice.  Both were 4 weights, and they had no long threes. The Winston felt oddly heavy and awkward to me. For trout rods I’m usually a Winston kind of guy, green is my favorite color, but this time no.

Maybe there was a reason for that clunkiness.  These are rods for trout nymphing in all situations. Unlike any other old 9′ 4wt., nymphing rods are designed not for delicate presentations to delicate fish (though every manufacturer assures me that they are the very thing for that very thing) but for responsive protected tips for delicate takes by big fish. The butt of the rod has to be substantial for landing bigger fish.  Hence I’m guessing the odd awkwardness of the Winston.

The Thomas & Thomas cast much better, plus my last name is Thomas! Plus it was blue! Plus it was 20% off! It was the Avantt I think. They only had a 4 weight, but they assured me they could get the 3wt.  Checking on line this morning though there doesn’t seem to be a 3wt., and I just don’t know if I could catch fish with a 4wt.  Not, of course, that I catch fish now.  But it’s 20% off! And my last name is Thomas!

And it’s blue!

Nobody around here sells Fenwick or St. Croix, so I’m tempted to buy one online, but what if I didn’t like it? And don’t I owe a duty of loyalty to my local shops?  I think I do, really.  But I like the idea of St. Croix, and it’s American made.  The cheapest, Fenwick, is Korean.

I’m certain that a nymphing rod will allow perfect mends. It will be so much fun and excitement and the joy of the world to perform perfectly that Czech-method straight-line nymphing that I’ve been reading about. I’ll have to learn some Czech, or maybe  some Polish, so that I can properly address the fish I’ll be catching.

I want to try the Orvis Recon still.  It gets very good reviews and is a very good price.  I don’t know if the fish will like a second tier rod, but then I suspect Thomas & Thomas is about to roll out a newer model, and the fish may not like that Avantt either.

Of course I know that if I just hold I’ll be over this in a few weeks, and the Buddha tells me that the satisfaction of one desire only begets new desire.  Sounds true to me, and I’m not even Buddhist. But then I’m going to West Virginia in May.  I need this rod for West Virginia.

 

 

 

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Hiring Fly Fishing Guides

Spring training is in West Palm Beach, and the games are in the daytime, so I really hadn’t planned to go fishing, but Kris wanted to go, and there you are. I didn’t know if there would be fly fishing in West Palm Beach, I didn’t know what to fish for, so I started hunting around the internet.

The first time I ever fished with a guide was probably 25 years ago, in Idaho, with Kris.  The guide intimidated me, and I thought he would rather have guided someone who knew what they were doing. We fished the Big Wood River, outside of Hailey where Ezra Pound was born.  I knew a good bit more about Ezra Pound than fly fishing.

My second trip with a guide was in Galveston, not long after, with Captain Chris Phillips.  I picked Chris because saltwater fly fishing in Texas wasn’t that common, and in Galveston Chris was it.  I thought Chris liked me a good bit more than I deserved, and I fished with him off and on for 15 years.  He was a legend in these parts, and when he died–eight years ago?–it was the death of a sweet man.

My third trip, with another Texas saltwater guide out of Rockport, was a bust, and I felt cheated.

I’ve fished with lots of guides.  I’ve had young guides who worked hard, old guides who were lazy, and vice versa.  I’ve had knowledgeable guides who taught me a lot, and I’ve even made a few friends.  Whether my guides were good or not seemed somewhat random, but I’ve worked out some guidelines:

  • If they’re in the Orvis lists, they’re likely to be ok.  You know the list, it’s on the Orvis website, and it’s one more thing they sell.  I’m certain the guides pay to be on there, but there seems to be vetting, and I’ve never had a bad guide off the list.  Ever.
  • Local fly shops will recommend good guides.  I’ve had guides who were abrupt, or too young, but I’ve almost always had good luck with the guide if not the fish.
  • Be dubious of the recommendations in your local fly shop of a guide many miles away.  They likely don’t know the guide.
  • A guide’s boat may be a good indication of his quality, at least in saltwater.  Guides with good boats are invested.  They’ve given their craft some care, even before you get there.
  • If a guide is booked for your time slot, ask for a recommendation, but don’t immediately assume their  recommendation is ok.  Guides may fish with a fellow guide or they may only share beers, but they aren’t likely to be guided by a fellow guide.
  • Guides who don’t fly fish may put you on fish, but they may not know what fly to use.  Especially in saltwater I’ve fished from time to time with conventional tackle guys.  It’s never been bad, and they knew the water, but they didn’t necessarily know flies.  I watched thousands of black drum stream by in the 9-Mile Hole near Corpus and had no idea what to throw at a black drum.  Black drum flies are not the same as redfish flies I gather, but you’d think if the guide fly fished I could have caught more than one.
  • When you’re going somewhere, read about the fishing where you’re going.  Check the internet.  Lots of guides write as advertising, and if what they write makes sense, they’re likely to make sense as well.
  • Product endorsements are meaningless for picking guides, but if you want to try a product line fish with an endorsed guide.  It’s a great way to try out equipment.

As for that guide on the Big Wood River, we were setting up rods and he pulled out new tapered leaders and put them on our lines.  He said “I always feel rich when I put on a new leader.” Great line, and something to remember.

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Girdle Bugs

I tried to fish for trout on the Guadalupe Sunday without a split shot, and ran into two problems.  The flow is so slow, and the river is so shallow, that the weight of my attractor–a girdle bug tied on a muddler hook–was still causing too many hangups in the rocks.  I had wrapped them 10 times or so with .025 wire.  I re-tied this week with .015.

It raised a problem for me, how do I tell last week’s girdle bugs, which would be just fine in heavier water, from this week’s girdle bugs?  I searched the internet, where writers suggested you should organize your fly boxes by weight.  Fat chance that.  My fly boxes are filled with good intent, but this week’s organization is largely chaos by the next time I go fishing.  I do manage to keep nymphs in one box, streamers in one, dries in a third, and little tiny things I can’t see anymore in a fourth.  And I like the notion of loading what I actually plan to fish in still another box.  I tied this week’s girdle bugs in brown, which contrasts from the prior week’s black.  Of course that means this week I have no black girdle bugs to fish.

I also had some 5x Umpqua tippet that was rotten.  How old was it? No clue, but it couldn’t have more than a decade. I guess after a few decades none of us are what we were.