While I was at wal-mart over the weekend to get a hunting license, standing in the loooong line (courtesy of the new, faster system), I couldnt help but spot a new crop of fishing rods sprouting from the display. Specifically catching my eye were the bright yellow eagle claws. I'd picked up one of the spinning models a few months ago, and thought about converting it to a fly rod (there werent any fly-models available at the store), but decided it'd be more trouble than it was worth. Now though, mixed in with the spinning rods, I saw what appeared to be fly rod handles and reel seats. Sure enough, after getting my license, I was pleased to see a few of the 7' 5-6wt rods. Mass-produced and cheaply made, general consensus on the rods still seems to be that, for $20, they're still a heck of a buy and a fun rod inside, say, 40 feet. With the totally pointless, but totally necessary ritual "test shake" complete (kind of like the tire kick when buying a car), I took one home.
Saturday looked like rain, so I postponed the planned trip to a bass & gill pond, but Sunday was beautiful, so I decided to take it out for trout instead. Attaching the only spare reel I've got, the battered graphite reel that came with my starter kit spooled up with some SA AirCel 2 line, I headed out for Indian creek. Once I got to the water, I remembered why I'd retired the reel. It's never quite been the same ever since it tangled with a fresh fall run steelie, and it basically free-spools in both directions. After adjusting for that, I was throwing some nice loops and really found the slooooow rod to my liking. No, it wasnt about to throw a tight loop 60' into a wind gust, but the little cheap rod was, as I'd heard, reliable inside 40' and could roll cast surprisingly well.
I decided to start simple, and found a pool holing some nice trout and threw a few different colors of woolly bugger. Most of these fish were fairly spooky in the slow, clear water, but one was a consistent chaser, and eventually, I got him to take the fly. For a brief moment, I felt the pull of a nice fish on the full-flex rod then, almost as if he knew the game, the trout did a quick loop around a submerged stick, pulled himself tight, and gave a quick head shake, easily snapping the 4X tippet and freeing himself. It was all over within 5 seconds. Disappointed, but encouraged, I got back on the trail and hiked upstream to a few other pools that had held trout last summer. One was devoid of anything larger than a 3" chub this year, but the next one was home to about a half dozen fish, one of which was actually a smallish tiger. Trying the buggers again, I got very little interest so I decided to go smaller, especially after seeing a few of the trout taking something underwater, near the streambed. I switched to a #14 cream caddis larva and tried a drift & swing approach. I was hesitant to drift it through the group, as they were lying fairly close together, and there was a real risk of bumping them with my leader and spooking them or worse, getting my leader across one of them and snagging it when it felt the line and bolted.
Luckily, the drift & swing worked. My first cast saw three trout following, and within ten minutes or so, a cast that had a few chasers saw one of the bigger fish, a slightly battle-scarred brown, move up and take the fly.
As my friend Jerry might have described it, the rod danced to match the trout's fight, flexing from the tip, most of the way to the (surprisingly nice) cork grip. I was pleased to note that while the top half of the rod was soft and supple, the lower half showed a surprising amount of backbone, allowing me to play the fish out and direct it into more open water.
Before long, the trout came to net, and after a quick snapshot, was released, still full of fight, taking off out of my grip as soon as it felt the water.
