In recent decades, Hardy was the manufacturer you turned to if you smoked a pipe and spoke like Rex Harrison, but it’s interesting to note that they – and the formerly tweed-friendly Orvis – both now offer cutting-edge fly rod technology (they’d suggest “industry-leading” technology), which is proof, I suppose, that you write off the old guys at your own peril (I’m not drawing parallels to the Underground, though you kids should stay the hell off my lawn).

Despite the win for an Underground advertiser, I’m compelled to offer a couple comments about the testing, which – despite the language – doesn’t appear to be a search for a truly “all-around” 5wt.

Only Speed Demons Need Apply

In fact, a quick glance at the criteria suggests a test that’s highly biased towards strong, fast-tapered rods – the kind of rods that are often more useful in daydreams than on small and medium-sized rivers.

For starters, the testing was conducted with an SA GPX line – the “half-line-weight-heavy” line that falls perilously close to 6wt territory, and represents (to me anyway) a sad admission that many modern fly rods are simply too stiff to function at “normal” distances with normal fly lines.

For other signs of what I’d consider a skew towards fast “power” tapers, look no farther than Yellowstone Anglers’ own evaluation criteria:

If you’re in the market for a good 5-weight rod, we are going to assume that you want one rod that will do it all – a rod that will cast in close with delicacy and accuracy with small drys and fine tippet, a rod that will launch larger drys like hoppers seventy feet into stiff breeze, and a rod that has enough backbone to throw a couple of nymphs, a wind resistant strike indicator and maybe a little split shot as well. It also must have the guts to chuck a streamer with a split shot clamped next to the eye, and put it on that cut bank 80 feet away.

Uhh, casting weighted streamers 80′? Throwing hoppers 70′ into a “stiff” breeze? Really??

It’s interesting to note that the only two “medium” tapered rods in the test (both by Orvis) finished no higher than the middle of the pack.

And that – to my eye – two of the four critera aren’t exactly the native habitat of the 5wt fly rod.

Finally, the use of the GPX line means the “5 Weight Shootout” is actually a “5.5 Weight Shootout.”

Merge those realities with repeated uses of marketing power words like “backbone,” “guts” and “launch” and I had to wonder why they didn’t simply test 6wts – which would actually handle 3/4 of the tasks far more comfortably than a 5wt.

In simple terms, Yellowstone Angler might have actually picked the best “All-Around 5wt” – but only if you were trying to sell overlined fly rods to people fishing big, windy western rivers.

That’s not the world faced by most fly fishermen – the vast majority of whom have never actually cast 80′, and probably never will.

Still, let’s not forget commerce is involved, and that reality always finishes a distant second to fantasy when you’re selling people things they probably don’t need.

Before The Emails Begin…

Before the nasty emails begin to pour in, let me be clear: the folks at the Yellowstone Angler state their criteria right up front, and I’m not alleging hidden agendas.

What I am saying is this: before you start buying your way down their shootout list (or any Top “XXX” list), consider the criteria, and see if they even remotely match your particular reality.

Being as I live in the mountains of Northern California, my “all-around” 5wt isn’t anything like Anderson’s.

Mine would cast wonderfully at small stream ranges, yet still throw a Green Drake (or October Caddis) on a medium-sized freestoner like the Upper Sacramento or McCloud. If pressed, I’d say it looks a lot like a medium-tapered 8.5′ 5wt that wouldn’t necessarily launch every 6″ or smaller small stream trout I hooked.

In all likelihood, it would barely lift a weighted streamer, much less cast it 80 feet.

It might even be bamboo or fiberglass, and could have been made upwards of half a century ago – an admission which suggests I don’t need to sell modern, high-modulus fly rods to fly fishermen.

In other words, consider the Yellowstone Angler 5wt Fly Rod Shootout a highly subjective test of strong, fast-tapered 5.5 wt rods in situations where you might normally fish a 6 wt, give Hardy their due for their apparent comeback (or simply welcome them back to the party), and let’s all move on with our lives.

See you testing anything but fly rods, Tom Chandler.

That’s why I wasn’t wholly surprised to stumble across the Colt Rod Company and its “revolutionary” technology:

We give you… the “Revolutionary” six-sided fishing rod:

I guess "An idea we stole from rods over 100 years old" just didn't sing...

I don’t know who Colt Rods are; I’ve never seen one in person, and while they’re currently selling conventional rods, they haven’t yet brought their fly rods to market. (When they do, we’d be happy to receive a dozen or so in a plain, unmarked package for revenue enhancement testing purposes.)

Still, I can’t help but smile a bit at the labeling of better than century-old technology six-sided construction as “Revolutionary.”

You could argue that Colt’s “I-beam” technology was different from bamboo’s solid structure, but I’d also suggest that the work of cutting edge bamboo hollowbuilders like Wayne Maca, Per Brandin, Thramer, Reams and Raine offers some striking similarities.

In any case, I frankly think Colt’s rods look interesting – maybe even cool, though again, you’d expect someone like me to think that. (It’s possible I have a taste for the different when it comes to fly fishing tackle.)

They might actually have something here (I've been arguing for hollowbuilt bamboo rods for years)

You’d have to figure they’d be heavier than regular cylindrical graphite rods, but then, I’ve always thought weight was more important to marketers than fishermen (being a bamboo/fiberglass guy, I would think that).

From the outside, they look a lot like the old Hexagraph rods, but those were carbon strips laminated atop foam – essentially a solid-built construction.

Want proof that this isn’t anything like your grandfather’s bamboo rod? Read this:

After being finished, the rods then go through a final step where the new owner’s information is electronically loaded on to the visible RFID chip located above the handle of the rod.

I get the feeling these rods won’t be cheap.

Once Colt ships us a large package containing many rods for testing, we’ll let you know how their revolutionary concept holds up.

See you in science class, Tom Chandler.

UPDATE: A couple people have suggested (via social media channels) that I’m exposing something here. In truth, I find the technology and rods pretty interesting, though I have to admit to finding the “revolutionary” tagline a trifle amusing.  Good luck to Colt…

A stack of fly rods leaning against the rail - the inevitable result of a Rod 'O Rama

Naturally, a good Rod ‘O Rama involves more than one person, and in extreme circumstances, disagreements over rod action or desirability may be settled with dueling pistols.

Mostly, a simple “you’re a clueless bastard” is enough.

During a really epic Rod ‘O Rama, you can dig out rods you haven’t seen in years (I don’t want to own any rods I haven’t fished in years, but have to admit I do), and – in rare instances – you may unearth fly rods you forgot you owned.

In this case, I found two rods I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen before, though I finally solved the mystery on one.

It was a Raine bamboo rod tube containing a butt and mid, but – puzzlingly – no tips.

It was a model I’d never owned, but realized later he’d grabbed it out of his shop by accident when we went fishing last fall, borrowed my spare rod that day, and then forgot to retrieve the tube from my truck.

I’m wondering what a reasonable ransom looks like.

The Theme of The Day: 6 WTs

A Rod ‘O Rama theme is useful, and in this instance, Older Bro was loooking for a 6wt, which means he got to cast everything from an decades-old Orvis Superfine 6wt to sweet 14 year-old Sage DS – right up to Raine’s saltwater 6wt and the high-tech Orvis Hydros that replaced my much-missed Zero Gravity.

Initially, you try to limit the madness to one type of rod, but eventually the words “if you like that, you’ll love my XXXX” are heard, and suddenly, you’re casting four and five weights too.

Before it’s over, you’ve got everything from a 60 year-old Phillipson to a two-month-old graphite leaning against the rail – every one of which is loaded with some kind of memory.

You find yourself ankle-deep in the snow still covering the yard, false casting a fly rod, adjusting the loop size, and the memory of a rainy day on a lake washes over you.

You may or may not remember how cold and wet you were, but you do remember dropping the rod in the shallow water because you were holding a 17″ rainbow, and that its strawberry lateral line lit up the rainy, monochromatic, steel-grey environment you’d come to accept as normal.

Later, I found myself casting a 7.5′ 5wt Fenwick glass rod – the factory equivalent to my first fly rod, one I built in the mid-70s from a blank.

While the original rod met its end in a Santa Clara garage, the replacement feels similar enough that casting it reminded me of the bluegills and crappie I caught from a muddy, weedy lake better than 30 years ago.

Putting Them Away… Sorta

Ultimately, Older Bro’ found a rod he liked, and since I had a similar rod, sent him home with it.

Yet, when I put all the rod tubes away, I noticed a few – like the Fenwick – ended up a little closer to the front of the pile.

It’s not spring yet – there’s still snow on the ground and the alpine trails are months away from opening – but we’re seeing the signs.

The blue jays who nest under the front eaves came back today, and temperatures could run into the upper 50s all week.

So while I can’t fish the small streams yet (not legally), I can set aside a few rods that haven’t been fished in a while, and imagine creating new memories with them over the coming season.

See you when the streams open, Tom Chandler.

Orvis has avoided all that in this podcast, but I’m looking for the Undergrounders to throw down their ideas.

Here, Tom Rosenbaeur and Perk Perkins advise anglers to not push the rod harder and don’t fight the wind, all of which is transparently good advice.

He and Rosenbauer also offer up a few non-controversial ideas, including:

• Keep casts low to the water (less windy there)
• Use a Belgian cast (a constantly loaded elliptical cast) to keep the line moving (haven’t tried it for wind, but it’s handy when you’re casting heavy flies like streamers)
• Use shorter leaders and smaller flies
• Cast a shorter rod

Interestingly, Perkins suggests he does just as well with a mid-flex rod in the wind as he does with a tip flex – something I did once experience fishing 6wts on a lake. I don’t get it, but it was true for me.

Is that simply because moderate tapers suit my casting style, or is there something else? (Discuss)

The Chainsaw Death Match Part

Finally, we get to the good stuff; Lefty Kreh has famously suggested underlining a fly rod by one line weight on windy days, apparently so you can throw tighter loops and generate faster line speeds.

And yes, I tried that once. The results weren’t pretty.

Apparently, Perkins and Rosenbauer don’t think much of the idea either, and in the interest of fomenting an Industry-Wide Death Match between Big-Name Heavy-Hitters, I’ve gotta ask the Undergrounders: has anyone else actually tried this, and had it work (or not)?

In my case, I’d suggest the lighter line loaded the rod less and offered less mass to “boss” the fly.

Perhaps If I’d been throwing a midge, it wouldn’t have mattered, but I was throwing a #14 parachute during a Callaebatis hatch, and eventually switched back to my original 6wt line (the rated line).

I’ve heard of anglers opting to overline a rod by one line weight on a windy day, so clearly, there’s ample room here for violent disagreement discussion.

Obviously, there’s plenty of room to screw around with all this stuff, but after years of mucking about, I simply fish a 6wt when it’s windy. Sometimes the simple solution is the best.

Where do the Undergrounders land on the subject of wind, fly rods, fly lines, and the prospect of an industry blood bath stuff?

Faster than you can say "about my lifetime warranty..."

Frankly, nothing says “lifetime warranty” better than a fly rod – only inches away from the Spinning Spokes of Doom – sticking straight up into the air.

The Bike Fishermen folks even offer a “Fly Pole Adapter” which allows you to carry your fly rod (reel in place) in two pieces, as if nothing could go wrong when you’ve pointed two 4.5′ pieces of extremely fragile graphite straight up.

The whole Bike & Bug thing isn’t exactly new, but I humbly suggest I’d feel a lot safer riding my mountain bike up a twisted, tree-lined trail to that alpine lake if my fly rod was still in its protective tube instead of sticking straight up in the air.

There’d be little amusement in arriving at that pristine alpine lake, spotting dozens of fish casually sipping midges, and turning around in the saddle – only to find two splintered stumps where your $700 fly rod used to be.

And while I hope these folks don’t lose their shirt on this one, I’d suggest they retain the services of a copywriter, who presumably would have pointed out the dualistic nature of their slogan, which seems to suggest it’s better to break rods the modern way instead of the old fashioned way:

Break your rods the modern way?

As always, Undergrounder participation is encouraged – especially if anyone has created any cool “cast & roll fast” rigs the rest of us could see.

See you on the trail, Tom Chandler.

I admit to some confusion around the gear aspect given the sub-$100 fly fishing outfits offered by several manufacturers (though I always wondered why they didn’t put the damned backing and line on the reel instead of forcing some newbie to do it).

And yes, I think it’s fair to say no newcomer to fly fishing should be expected to spend $3000 for a fly rod, reel, waders, boots and little gear, but frankly, fly fishing’s never enjoyed as much really good, really affordable gear as it does now.

And compared to other outdoor pursuits, fly fishing’s actually pretty affordable. (Priced a bass boat lately?) After all, a day on the water costs as little as an annual license (amortized over many days), and the biggest single consumable expenses revolve around gas and flies.

In other words, it’s possible that fly fishing’s “expensive” reputation has little to do with reality, and a lot to do with perception.

So what’s feeding that perception?

I’ve got a few guesses, but want to hear from the Undergrounders.

Some Guesses?

• In most magazines, the average newcomer is bombarded by ads & stories for high-end rods and $5k/week destinations
• Fly shops aren’t always the friendliest environment for newcomers
• Fly fishing isn’t expensive as much as it is hard – and to some, investing time to get “good” is the equivalent of “expensive”

What do the Undergrounders Think?

• Is fly fishing too expensive to recruit newbies?
• Is the industry newbie-unfriendly?
• Are fly fishermen newbie unfriendly?
• Is the sport’s focus on high-end gear and exotic places throttling the sport?
• Recruitment during a recession is never easy (even as millions suddenly find themselves with spare time), but what will get newbies into the sport?
• Do we want newbies in the sport? (This last for you cranky readers.)

Pencils up,
Tom Chandler

I thought I’d create a photographic travelogue highlighting none other than… me:

Notice the rich, luxurious carpet. This ain’t Motel 6

On the shuttle in from the airport I passed the Wright-McGill/Eagle Claw building, and realized I still harbor a soft spot for Wright-McGill given their connection to Granger bamboo fly rod company.

Today, most all their gear is manufactured offshore, but the company’s still here – housed in a long, low brick building (that looks old enough to have once housed the Granger rod mill).

Sadly, my camera was buried in my luggage, else you lucky bastards you’d be looking at pictures of the Wright-McGill building and my feet in the shuttle bus.

Normally, outdoor “journalists” arrive at these things expecting to be fed, paid off and bribed in return for fawning, non-critical coverage, but I’m saddened to say I’ve been in town for more than an hour, and I have yet to experience a fawned-over moment.

This won’t do.

In fact, things have become so desperate, I’m being forced to go buy my own lunch before heading to the show (oh, the humanity).

See you at FFR, Tom Chandler.

fly fishing, fishing, ffr, fly fishing retailer, denver, wright-mcgill, fly rods

The Seventh Annual Metolius River Fly Fishing & Bamboo Rod Fair is a FREE EVENT to share the knowledge of bamboo rods, fly tying and fly fishing set in the beautiful Metolius River basin.

Cane Rods- Buy Sell Trade, Show & Tell

Come out for TWO days of Fun, Flies and Food!
Set aside July 19th and 20th 2008 from 10a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and 10 to 3 on Sunday to come to the Fair!

Call for more information 541-595-6711

Even the Underground’s Official Director of Rogue River Ass Kicking should be there (Dave Roberts), so if you’re going, make sure to walk up to him and tell him the Underground sent you to pick on his sorry butt (keep in mind he’s a former Marine [Force Recon]).

See you waving bamboo fly rods, Tom Chandler.

(Click to go to fire map Web site)

Even Singlebarbed is feeling the heat (at work anyway, and it’s nice to see that slacker him buckling down for a change), though the whole wildfire thing is creating some compelling interior commentary.

For example, should a fire burn towards our nestled-against-the-mountain house while I’m gone, I fear the L&T Nancy will manifest the wrong reflexes, saving photographs, clothes and irreplaceable personal items instead of what’s really important: my bamboo fly rods.

It’s a frightening mental picture; the pet-laden L&T-mobile bouncing down the driveway jammed with photo albums and clothes while the fire burns hungrily towards my Phillipsons, Raines, Beasleys and Thramers.

It’s the kind of image that wakes you up screaming at night, and the smart fly fishermen would bundle his favorite rods together, prepping them for rapid evacuation by air, though the prospect of finding a Rod-Evac helicopter on short notice seems a little far fetched (there’s a gold-plated business idea for the Undergrounders, at no charge).

Clearly, a good night’s sleep carries costs far beyond a comfortable mattress.

Of course, that’s assuming I don’t end up stuffing pretty much every fly rod I own into the truck for the Montana trip – a real possibility given my pre-trip tendency towards carefully selecting the bare minimum of rods, then panicking just before I leave and throwing everything that’s left on the pile (I sense a separate post).

Until the Big Fly Rod Decisions are made, I’ll see you in the downstairs Man Cave, staring at tubes, Tom Chandler.

Technorati Tags: california wildfires, fly rods, bamboo fly rods, montana fly fishing trip

Those looking for fly rod bargains will have their interest piqued. Those who wonder about the forces transforming the fly fishing industry will find a lot of fodder for discussion.

And yes, Singlebarbed names names.

See you at Singlebarbed, Tom Chandler.