Birthday Surprise

You know your life is pretty peachy when an unexpected package shows up on your doorstep, a long, 4" square package. And, even though it's a plain, unmarked package from an unknown address, as an angler you know what's in it. That old familiar shape that says, "you've got a rod!"

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

The Creek With No Name

For days I’ve been patiently sitting around our campsite at times when I would normally be on the Upper Dolores River fishing. Since we got to Dolores, CO last week it has been raining on and off putting a serious damper on my river time. Today I couldn’t be patient any longer. I may have reached a point in life where I feel good about foregoing fishing now and then just to sit but sitting makes an old guy fat…..well that and all the snacking that goes on while being patient.

We woke up this morning to cloudy skies and a light drizzle but there was that feeling in the air. It was that feeling anglers know as a good day to fish, we feel it in our bones. It got stronger as the morning wore on and the skies cleared. During our morning walk along the river through the campground it was obvious that there wouldn’t be any fishing the Dolores today. It has been raining upstream for days in the headwater canyon which turns the 50 miles of river upstream of McPhee Reservoir to a chocolatey-milky mess. In fishing you should always have a plan-B. Fortunately there is no shortage of plan-B options around here. Today’s plan-B is a creek with no name.

This creek is the perfect spot to air out a Winston Retro 3 weight I’ve had stuck in its tube for over a year. It is 6 ½ feet of pure fiberglass perfection with an action so slow you can almost take a nap between the backcast and presentation. A 14” trout can put a bend in it all the way to the cork but I can still lay out 40 feet of line if the situation calls for it but not today. I scarcely had more than 15 feet of line out of the guides. I strung it up with the smallest reel I have along the other day hoping I could get on some small water. When I first put the Lamson Liquid 1.5 on the reel seat it felt out of balance but when I put the rod together today it felt near perfect with the weight of the line in the guides. The other day I contemplated acquiring a smaller reel but after fishing it that idea has been put to rest. It turns out to be a near perfect combination. If Lamson would just make the Liquid in a size 1 it would make a perfect match.

Although I love fishing this creek and other creeks like it I haven’t hit it in several years even though we’ve made many stops here since I discovered it. For me creeks like this are best experienced on special occasions like fine gourmet dining because something like this can spoil you and eventually nothing seems to satisfy. It’s one of the first creeks I fished in this drainage back in 2003 which is still one of the highlights of my fishing life, today was another. I think the penchant for this type of fishing came from fishing a small creek in New Mexico just like this one. I hope to visit the nameless creek in New Mexico again next year. Until then I’ll just savor today.

I won't go into a blow by blow it's best to just let the pictures do the talking.

Patience

Sitting near the campfire near one of America’s 100 top trout streams I can hear the river bubbling in the quiet of dusk, at least when the fire isn’t crackling. It’s been days since I have been able to hit the water and oddly enough I’m quite content with that. There was a time when it would have driven me nuts to be so close to a wonderful trout stream day after day and not be standing in it fishing.

Admittedly the weather has been an issue with torrential rains a couple of days that turned the river to something resembling chocolate milk. But there have been more days when it’s been just enough to sit and watch and listen. Bird watching has never been much of an amusement for me but the Mountain Jays, Common Sparrows, Northern Flickers, occasional hawks and other assorted unnamed birds have kept me quite occupied lately.

Until this morning we were setup in a campsite not 20 feet from the river but had to relocate due to booking our stay too late. From there I was able to sit at any time and watch the tiny brown trout parr feeding constantly. It makes me wonder how they ever collect enough calories to grow with the energy they expend jumping clear of the water to feed on the minute insects that inhabit this section of the river. However they do it seeing the number of parr in the river gives me hope for the future of the fishery here.

A couple of evenings I have donned my Vedavoo slingpack and walked a short section of the bank just downstream from the bridge that divides the campground. The rocks stacked along the banks to prevent erosion are pretty easy to walk even for a gimp like me. When the water is clear I can cast small dry flies along the current seams or around the larger rocks on the river bed and watch the trout rise to my fly. The trout here get fished over constantly and even the tiniest of them become very discerning- if you can say that about a trout –about what they take for food. Just as often as not they rise, follow and refuse my offerings. Other campers watch from the bridge or the walking path behind me and always politely inquire as to “how I’m doing”.

“Delightful” is my standard reply. How else could I be standing on the banks of a beautiful Rocky Mountain stream less than 100 yards from where our rolling house is parked? Some of the more serious inquirers, invariably men, request fish counts, and want to know what fly I’m using. I never give too many details and try to keep my answers simple, not because I enjoy being coy it’s just that at times like these it just really doesn’t matter. There are plenty of times when the size, fish count and size of the catch matters this however is not one of those times. In all the years we have been coming here I’ve never hooked anything over 10” in this little stretch of river. The times for specific flies, intense concentration and fish counts I save for the stretches of river that have been discovered over the years.

I did get out to one of those places last Friday. I won’t say where it is because some things are far better left unknown to the masses even on well-known rivers. I few years back I made the mistake of posting a photo that showed a location on a certain “Gold Medal” water. Along with the photo I told of the trout I had landed, the flies used and of a very large rainbow that took me for all I had. When I returned a few days later I couldn’t even find a place to park near that section of the river. My lesson has been learned. I did write an article on this river for SW Fly Fishing magazine but as anyone who does that sort of thing knows you tell the readers how to get here. What flies to bring and let them sniff out the secrets for themselves. It has to be that way or every good hole on every river ever featured would be over-fished. But I digress…..

The point is that in over a week of being next to this beautiful river I’ve been out for one afternoon in serious fishing mode, something that has seldom come natural in the past. That state does seem to come more often these days though. Sharon has even mentioned how calm I have been without having to be on the water every minute the weather is cooperating. I would like to think that it’s a state that comes with age, countless hours on the water and who knows how many fish landed or lost. I count the fish that have openly refused my offerings in that number also. They “refusers” used to be the one that haunted me the most. Now I think of them as the ones that have taught me the most. I have to admit that not being quite as steady on the rocks as I used to be may have something to do with it to some extent.

I guess the progress of my fishing life is no different than so many others, not surprisingly all of a certain age I have met or read about. Those first few times out with a fly rod we’re just happy to be outside with a rod in hand experiencing nature in a manner where just catching a fish is a bonus. Later on, once a few fish have been landed we just want to catch more than the time before. Then the search for big fish, then many big fish consumes our attention until eventually the urge to catch every big fish in a lake or river is something akin to insatiable. Somewhere in there we forget to look up at the Osprey soaring overhead or the deer walking the bank. The colors of the trees don’t even register and the bankside flowers go completely unnoticed. Damn the weather, damn the chores and at some point work be damned I’m going fishing. Jobs and families have been forfeited by some just to catch more fish. I once quit one and took another job 2,500+ miles away just so I could fish a famous lake. It’s not something I’m proud of now although I was at the time.

Eventually most of us fanatical anglers learn that it’s okay just to be an angler. I like to think that with age and experience I have acquired a sense of patience, something like coming full circle. An afternoon watching the parr feed with total abandon is satisfying in a different way but still completely satisfying. I don’t think there will ever come a time when I won’t long to be near the water yet for today it is more than enough.

I almost forgot to mention that last Friday went pretty well. I landed quite a few trout on a fly I’ve been tinkering with for a few years now just for this river. There was even a pair of fairly good sized cutthroats. Satisfaction!

Lamson Liquid Review

A while back I was surfing the internet and happened to end up over at the Waterworks-Lamson site. Watching the slideshow banner I notice a couple of new reels, one of which turned out to be the Liquid. Curiosity got me to reading about it and doing a little more investigating. I suppose the first thing about the Liquid that caught my attention is the price. The second is the use of Lamson’s conical drag system. The third is the look and finish of the reel.

For those of you who have not followed me here or at the DragonflyAngler blog I love fly fishing gear (who doesn't) but like most of the working stiffs out there I have a limited budget to draw from. I've been fishing pretty much the same reels for decades now because I just can’t afford to pay what most reel makers want for new quality reels with a good drag. Until now!

When I saw that Lamson is offering a reel for $99.95 I had to get my hands on one and check it out. For my personal use there are three requirements for a fly reel; 1- it needs to have a good drag, 2-it needs to be fairly light and 3- it has to fit my budget. The Lamson Liquid easily fits all three of these requirements. Another thing that drew me to the Liquid so quickly is the Liquid 3-pack that Lamson is offering with this reel. The 3-pack offers you a reel and two spare spools for the price of a reel and one spare spool and you also get a handy, dandy carrying case. This is very appealing for those like myself that frequently fish different lines.

Immediately after reading about the Liquid I called our local fly shop and after a short wait for the first ones to arrive I had one in my hands. The reel features a pressure cast spool and frame. You can read about it here. The finish is matte black which I really like for stealth purposes. The center of this reel however is the Waterworks-Lamson conical drag system. This is the drag system they use on all their reels from top to bottom.

When I got the 1.5, 3-pack home I immediately put line and backing on all three spools. The 1.5 is designed for 3 and 4 weight lines. I spooled up a WF3F, WF4F and WF5F line on the three spools. For the past three years I've been using a Guru 1.5 as my go to 5 weight reel. Personally I want the smallest, lightest reel I can get an adequate amount of backing and let’s face it if you need more than 75 yards of backing on a trout reel you’re probably not going to land that trout anyway.

While loading the spools, which I do manually, I was impressed with the smoothness of operation. I was also impressed with the weight or should I say the lack there of. There is a slight amount of play between the spool and frame but not enough to concern me at all. The real test of the reel would be when in use under pressure from a nice, fat trout.

This past week I was able to get out and apply the pressure needed to test the reel in use. It took several hours on a local tailwater to hook into a trout large enough to put it to the test but once I did I was completely unaware of the play I had noticed on the bench when loading the spools. After 5 hours of constant casting I was very happy with the lack of weight and casting fatigue. This reel balance very well with an Orvis 8’ 6” PM10 5 weight that weighs in at a paltry 2 5/8 ounces.

The bottom line here is that I am more than thrilled with the 1.5 Liquid. I honestly believe that you will be hard pressed to find a reel that performs like the Liquid for 2-3 times the cost. Waterworks-Lamson has definitely come up with a winner here. I am just glad I don’t work for another reel company. If you’re looking for a great reel at an even greater price find a dealer near you and check them out. Keep in mind that at the moment you may have to wait a bit, I did and it was worth it!

If this sounds like a commercial I won’t apologize. It has been a long time since a piece of fly fishing gear has got me so excited. In case you’re wondering I am not on the Lamson payroll although it’s a thought.

 I already have plans to add another 3-pack to my arsenal very soon, with a Liquid 2 in the not too distant future. If these hold up to extended use I will be adding a 3.5 to the arsenal in the slightly more distant future. They are selling 3-packs in the 1.5 and 2 models for $149.95 and the 3.5 model for $159.95. I could scrimp and save and fret and worry about spending the money to buy more expensive reels but why would I? So far, and mind you this after only a few hours on the water, I absolutely love this reel. For me it has everything I want in a fly and nothing I don’t, specifically an astronomical price tag.

Before I forget there's one more thing about the Liquid that I really like. It looks really cool. What more could you ask for?