The Cheap Fly Fishing Gear You Wish You Still Had
By Tom Chandler on Oct 24, 2007 in gear
Singlebarbed – the other blog in the Trout Underground’s fledgling writer’s network – continues to crank out weird and the wonderful posts, including this little gem about fishing “cheap” tackle when the terrain (or the sudden need to flee) demands it:
I’m fishing in the rural-urban interface, a fancy term that means the city is close to the woods. Come Friday evening I can expect anything from the “high-powered rifle hatch” to the Gang-bangers with a yen for white-meat. All of them will be powered by Jack Daniel’s or Budweiser, and it won’t matter whether you have to defend yourself or cut and run, that rod is a liability.
My rod is a Fenwick Eagle Graphite 8.6″ for a 5 weight line. It was the rod I kept for clients to use when their tackle was poor quality, back in my guiding days. It cost $80 new (circa 1990), and throws a nice tight loop. The epoxy is lumpy, the guide trim is painted on, the reel seat is all metal, and it fishes smooth.
What caught my eye was the fly rod itself — an admirably light and smooth Fenwick Eagle model that I owned briefly, and in a fit of pure stupidity, sold.
It joins a short list of great, cheap fly fishing tackle that — if it carried the weight of a serious price tag instead of a cheap reel seat – would probably still be widely praised on the sport’s message boards.
So — in the interest of group participation — I’m creating the Underground’s First Annual “Cheap Fly Gear You Should Have Kept, But Didn’t” post.
So Undergrounders — what’s your favorite, most-missed, cheapo gear?
The Underground’s Choice
I already mentioned the cheap Fenwick graphite rod above, but the real angst at the dark core of the shadowy underbelly of my fly fishing soul (dark, eh?) revolves around an 8.5′ 5wt fly rod by a little-known company called East Branch — a small custom manufacturer of graphite fly rods that had the misfortune to produce great fly rods instead of high-octane marketing.
It was the sweetest graphite fly rod I ever cast — so good that it become the only graphite rod that ever broke the stranglehold exerted by my bamboo and fiberglass rods.
I loved it so much, I decided to share the joy and sent it to a friend, who shipped back a check instead of the rod.
Naturally, by the time I got around to ordering another, East Branch had gone the way of all companies not willing to hype their gear with images of grim-faced guides and dark, moody photographs.
(You were probably expecting a bamboo fly rod story, but hell, I haven’t sold many of those.)
Of course, every fly fisher has a similar tragedy buried in the back of their gear closet. What’s yours?
Technorati Tags: fly fishing, fly fishing gear, fly rod, fenwick fly rod, east branch, graphite fly rod, bamboo fly rod
Cliffordo | Oct 25, 2007 | Reply
Well, if you still hunger for it, I have one and am willing to sell it. Ipaid $225 for it and it is fine used but not abused condition.
I have a Scott 3 pc equally fine, love it even more and don’t need two greast 5 wts!!
hawgdaddy | Oct 25, 2007 | Reply
“Cheap Fly Gear You Should Have Kept, But Didn’t”?
I’ve still got all my cheap gear. It’s all I have. Of course, cheap is a relative term. I’ve now got so much cheap gear that the shear quantity may disqualify “cheap” as one of it’s characteristics.
hawgdaddy
overmywaders | Oct 25, 2007 | Reply
I still have fond memories of a 7′ 4wt Fenwick Ferrulite glass rod I bought new for $35. That rod was a dream to cast, but a friend needed a rod so I passed it along.
But an 1890 vintage 10′ Chubb 6wt cane rod (cheap even in its day) with ring guides, that I bought for $17 is most deeply mourned by me. After replacing all the ring guides with snakes and restoring 100+ intermediates, I used that rod for years. It was so slow I could start the back-cast, go home for lunch, return to the stream and enjoy a leisurely smoke — and only then would it be time for the forward cast. But oh how it cast! A simple flick of the wrist, no arm movement, would extend the line effortlessly from 10′ to 30′ and drop it gently. Such is life, I needed money and had to part with the rod.
Reed
Harry | Oct 25, 2007 | Reply
I’m pretty much in the same boat as Hawgdaddy. Combine the fly gear with the 25-30 walleye rods, bass rods, striper rods, and crappie outfits I have accumulated over the last 30 years, cheap is no longer in the equation.
Maybe that has something to do with why the wife banned me from Bass Pro, Cabela’s and the new Orvis shop?
kbarton10 | Oct 25, 2007 | Reply
I wish I had kept that steel bait casting rod my Dad issued me for trout. 25lb test braided squidding line, blue… I remember getting frustrated with a blacklash (openface reel) and flinging it into the creek.
Pop grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and I went in after it…unwilling.
Learned a great lesson about tackle that day.
Curly Friede | Oct 25, 2007 | Reply
Never bought a flyfishing item costing over 175 dollars so all my stuff is relatively “cheap”. Didn’t want to answer this depressing subject but, like that jibbering nightmare entity who forces-compells one to gaze paralized at his hopelessly frightful visage, your question brought forward a line of beloved friends, long gone, who demand to be addressed. Painful business. So many losses.
First was the 8′ bamboo my grandfather gave me when I was four. Caught my first brookie on it. We lived on a lake and that one got a lot of use until I was eight and lent it to Danny Cody, the fat kid next door who was hard on things. Found it in his yard, broken beyond hope. (I found out later that the broken rod was actually revenge. Danny had gotten wind that Chipper Brown, another lake kid, and myself, had plotted to sneak into his house and put snapping turtles in his bed.) It was a 3-piece and the butt section was still good, so I fished with just that until I got the Zebco. Can’t remember what brand it was, but the last fish I caught on the butt section was my first brown.
Next was the immaculate 8′ Montague bamboo my dad’s childhood friend, the great Frank Woolner, gave me. That one caught a lot of New England brookies and smallies. A Millbury cop, after intentionally running over my bike wheel, broke that one over his knee, in front of me, while grinning spitefully. I was in the third grade — doing a regular number on some big smallies spawning in a back cove at Dorothy Pond — and the cop had just caught me ditching school to go fishing for the third time in one month. That was a rough one. My mom locked up my fishing stuff in the chicken coop. But, never losing a step, I fashioned myself a highly effective “skittering pole” from a maple sapling and outfitted it with line and other gear from my dad’s tackle box, and fished with that until things cooled down.
The Frank Woolner Montague came with one of those old Plueger reels with a narrow frame and cool old-timey, teardrop shaped cutouts on the spool. Wish I still had that.
Then there was the workhorse of my youth, the 8′- 6wt Heddon Pal glass rod. For a young flyfisher, the Heddon Pal was all that the name suggests — truely a “pal”: always there, never judging, pragmatic and kind. Caramel-colored, serious business. It did it all. This one survived a move to California and many intrepid adventures before meeting its end on I-5 near Eugene, Oregon back in my early ’70’s
hitchhiking days when it launched from the bed of a guy’s pickup tied to my backpack.
Then I raised four sons who went through tackle like water through a net, and losses there would be a littany too long to even recall. The 8′- 6wt Fenwick Blackhawk, sweetest graphite I ever fished — kids busted it. And I’m not sure what happened to the 9′- 6wt Cortland “S” glass that casted like having a relaxed conversation with the Dalai Lhama. I can think of other stuff too, but can’t go on, it’s too sad, too pathetic. Nothing lasts.
Tom Chandler | Oct 26, 2007 | Reply
Cliff: You jerk — offering me the East Branch right after I’ve moved, which is when I have the cash flow of a destitute five year-old. Still, send me an e-mail and we’ll talk.
As for the rest of you, I had no idea I’d open so many scabbed-over wounds. From now on, I’m staying away from nostalgia — apparently we’re all the Walking Wounded…
Phil Stubbs | Feb 7, 2008 | Reply
Hey my philosophy is a trout can’t tell the difference between a $500 Hardy reel and a $17 Martin, which is what I purchased on sale last week. Martin is my reel of choice, it holds the line just as well as the Hardy or whatever “designer boutique” reel your local shop is hocking to get your hard earned dollar.
My favorite cheap rod is my fiberglass 7 weight 9’ Lamiglas Rod that I built from a kit I purchased 20 years ago on a close out for $10. It came with the blank, all the guides, handle and reel seat for $10. I built several of these close out rods and gave them to my father and father inlaw. I just wish I had bought more of them. The rod is not only my favorite cheap rod it is my favorite rod.
When I think about it, I usually spend more money on my line, leader and fly than I spend on my rod and reel!
I have 6 rods and 6 reels and have not spent more than $50 for any of them. Watch for the close outs and don’t get sucked into the latest “techno gear” hype. Next year that “techno gear” will be on the close out table for half price to make room for the latest hyped up rod and reel.
Then you will never have the regrets about cheap gear you still wish you had.