Tag: Fly rods

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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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Helios 3

We took two rods to the Guadalupe, the 5 weight Orvis Helios 3 I gave Kris for Christmas and my Winston 6 weight.  This was my year for buying rods, and I bought the 6 weight Winston in June before a trip to Arkansas, and put a Hardy Duchess reel on it.  You want aesthetics?  Match a Winston with a Hardy reel and it’s a thing of beauty.  I’ve fished with an older Winston 5 weight for a while now, and I like Winstons.  I like that green.  I like the nickel hardware and the burled wood reel seats.  They’re just pretty, and they feel right to me: they have substance.

Kris though has this thing for Orvis rods, and the lighter the better.  She wanted the 8 weight, but we have a lot of 8 weights ’round here, ranging from an old Orvis Rocky Mountain on which the 25-year warranty has expired through a Helios 2.  Eight weights are really the rod of choice on the Coastal Plain, and we’ve got Sages and a Thomas & Thomas and some Orvis.  They’ll catch most things we see in saltwater, and they’ll throw big bass flies.  They’re good in wind, and there’s always wind.  Anyone needs an 8 weight, I’ve got a store full.  Plus I’d just bought a new Loomis 7.

But at the Orvis store the 8 weight Helios 3 did cast great, and I was tempted.  After all, I’d get to fish it.  But I got her the 5 weight, even though when I cast it at the store I thought it felt whispy and rattly.  She doesn’t have a 5 weight, she would only be happy with the Helios 3D, and I thought it would be a great deal because I have lots of old 5 weight reels sitting around.  I went to Bayou Cithy Angler and got her the Amplitude 5 weight mpx line.  Christmas morning she was thrilled.  I also gave her a new Astros jersey.  She was thrilled with that too.

I put the line on a Ross Cimarron reel, circa 1995, and the day after Christmas we went to the Guadalupe.  The reel was unacceptable.  Too large.  Too bulky.  Not sufficiently . . . matched. Not that aesthetics matter to me.

The day after the day after Christmas we were back at Bayou City Anglers, and she picked the Ross Colorado Light reel, the one with nothing to it but a bit of click and pawl.  I told her that she could get a much friendlier drag system–of course I didn’t tell her that every trout reel I own is click and pawl.  But why would my opinion matter? I never catch fish anyway.  And it did make a beautiful combination with that rod.  Did you know that reel has heart cut-outs, just like a circa-1973 DeRosa?

So yesterday on the Guadalupe I tried out her rod for the second time.  I’m not a bad caster, but I’ve got a tendency to get tailing loops by overpowering my forward cast, and unless I think about it I get a bit of a wrist twirl that leaves my fly five feet to the left of the fly line.  But at a reasonable distance with enough concentration I can get within a yard or so of my target. All I can say is that the Orvis casts true.  You send the fly somewhere, and it goes there.  At the store I thought it whispy.  On the water I thought it telegraphic.  Or digital. Or something.

As for the aesthetics, it’s not as pretty as my Winston, but it’s a handsome rod, especially with that Ross reel.  And when you go to pick it out of a pile of rods, it’s the easiest thing in the world to spot.