My buddy Nick had been talking about the new Moonlit rods he's been testing out and catching a lot of redfish, speckled trout and bass with. He's also been testing, and catching the majority of those fish, with the steady stream of flies I've sent him, no strings other than some honest feedback.
When he mentioned I might like the 8'2", 6 weight model, there's been talk of a quick-shot streamer rod, I shrugged it off thinking "that would be nice, but a new rod isn't in my immediate future".
Then a few days later the box showed up. When I texted Nick his reply was "Happy Birthday".
Hot damn!
I got out and lawn cast the, sleek, burnt orange rod. I normally won't take the wrapper off the grip of a rod until I've had it for a while and feel like it's something I'll want to use. The wrapper came off the grip after 4 casts, the last of which I stepped off at 72'.
But then there's always the question of how it will handle casting with a heavy fly in addition to the line weight. This morning I got a chance to test that.
Living in the City of Billings has its perks, one of which is a surprising amount of bass and carp fishing for being within viewing distance of the Rocky Mountains, something that's a welcome perk when all the rivers in the vicinity are in the "chocolate milk" stage of run off. I chose one of the bigger ponds in the area because of the carp possibilities knowing a chunky carp would tell me what I wanted to know about how the Moonlit rod would handle a formidable fish.
I will admit that it didn't start out well. Graphite has been my fly rod material of choice for over a decade. My go-to 6 weight has been a self-built, 9' St Croix Legend Elite since 2010. It's a thunderstick with the power of a cannon, and the speed of a sling shot. Adjustment had to be made, but once they were I was firing 60-70 foot casts with relative ease, just at a slower pace.
The trick with a new rod, especially one with a completely dissimilar action to the rods you're used to, is to let the rod speak to you. Forget about the last rod you spoke to and just listen with your hand. The Moonlit spoke.
The outing was looking like a walk around the pond with a fly rod. The carp were in that ever too frequent F U mood, that mood when they seem to say "I've saw better than that from the 10 year old with worms man, come on!" they give you the fin and skedaddle for deeper water. 10 shots, 10 misses. That's fishing.
Giving up on the golden frustraters of freshwater fishing, I switched to my new old standby a Scimitar Minnow, it catches everything, except the F U carp. A couple small bass grabbed the 3/0 fly but couldn't quite get it in their maw around it. There had been quite a bit of commotion in an area of adjacent to some cattails all morning. I'd blown that shot the first time I approached by sliding on a substantial pile of goose poop, they're beautiful birds but man what a mess they leave! Anyway..........
With a "what the heck" attitude I laid the scimitar out beautifully, just to see if anybody was still home or they had drifted out deeper with the thinning of the clouds. Somebody was home, Mr Smallmouth. Unaware of the presence of smallmouth bass in this pond, I was surprised by the fight this fish put up, until I got a really good look at it and realized it was old Mr Bronzeback!
The Moonlit rod did a great job of handling what turned out to be a substantial smallmouth, especially for a shallow pond. Quite the extension to a great birthday. A new rod, another personal species caught on the Scimitar and my very first bass in Montana happened to be good sized and a smallmouth.
Despite what's going on across the country, life is pretty peachy, if you can just shut out the noise and get on with a little relief for a while.
Peace, Love & Fly Fishing,
J Wood
