The Sixes - 2023 Style

As you can probably tell from my previous posts, a majority of my fishing is done with 4- and 5-weight rods. I haven't fished for muskies in about 15 years. I keep thinking I will head over to fish for lake run trout and salmon some Fall, but I haven't done that in about 15 years, either. I fish for carp about once a year, and smallmouth bass less than 5 times a year. 99% of my fishing is for trout and panfish, so therefore a vast majority of my rods are built for those fish. But I do occasionally have reason to fish a larger rod, so here is my small batch of sweet 6-weights.

When I first fell in love with fiberglass rods, the best way to do it was find some fairly inexpensive vintage rods, so that's what I did. And when you find vintage glass, it's almost always a 6-weight or higher. Back in the day, they didn't have time for light line weights. Or maybe they didn't have the technology to make light line rods. Whatever the case, almost all rods were 6- or 7-weights. Or bigger. 5-weights were rare, and 4-weights were almost unheard of. So, I acquired a bunch of 6-weights from various vintage manufacturers.

I have owned 6-weights from Wright & McGill, Phillipson, Fenwick, Garcia, Berkley, Cortland, Heddon, Shakespeare, and on and on. A lot of them were good, serviceable rods, and I have caught a lot of fish with them. But I moved most of them on, since I would rather fish with a 4- or 5-weight. But I still have a few, which get fished every once in a while. Here they are, from shortest to longest:

7'6" Vince Cummings River Rat. Vince Cummings rods are fairly rare, and seem to have a mystical aura about them. Not sure about all that, but the ones I have acquired are all wonderful casting tools. I owned two of these at one point, and sold the other one for probably way too little. Oh well. This one can throw a 6-weight line a mile. I love it.

7'6" Berkley Shadow S-Glass. One of the few glass rods that I have not owned or even waggled is a Berkley Stream Specialist, which is supposed to be one of the best glass rods ever manufactured. I am still looking for a Stream Specialist, but in my searches I came across this vintage S-Glass Berkley rod. Since the vaunted Stream Specialists were purportedly built out of S-Glass, this rod got me to wondering if maybe it was built on the same blank, only with less expensive accoutrements, like Berkley was known to do back in the day... Not sure, but this rod is sweet! Nice and crisp action, almost fast. I can boom casts all day long.

7'6" Scott PowR-Ply. This is a new acquisition for me. I have only had it out in the yard so far. Like all Scott glass rods, it's a bit tip-heavy in the hand, but it is so smooth when casting. It will be a perfect streamer, nymph, and all-around rod. 

7'9" Sage 679SFL. All Sage glass rods are on the fast side, and this is no exception. And it is nice and light in the hand. This is a perfect smallmouth rod. I can cast Clousers and Buggers all day with this thing. I think I should do that more often this summer...

8' Berkley Para-Metric. This is the glass rod I have had the longest. I got it as part of a lot of four or five glass rods on ebay when I was first getting interested in glass. It's the only one from that lot I still own. Most Para-Metrics have the famous Berkley sleeve/spigot ferrule. This one is just a normal spigot ferrule. It feels extremely light in the hand, and it casts beautifully. I still am not sure what Para-Metric really means, but this rod is great. It seems that most 8' Para-Metrics are designated as 7-weights, but this one has "Recommended Line No. 6" written on the blank. It's a beaut! And look at the original medallion, still intact!

8' Fenwick FF806-4. I love this rod! I have had a bunch of vintage pack rods over the years, and this is the only one I have kept. It is a wonderful rod; it can handle any size fly I might want to use during a day of trout or bass fishing; it has a nice crisp action that casts beautifully; and I have caught a ton of fish with it! It will never leave my side. I love it.

OK, that's all my 6-weight rods. My collection is kind of slim compared to my 4- and 5-weights, huh? Well, if you thought the rods were slim, you should see the reels! There are just three of them, and two of those are the same reel! I have two Martin MG-7s, and both are filled with some sort of SA WF lines. These reels are perfect for vintage glass. They hold lots of line, they are ventilated so they are pretty light as far as vintage reels go, but they are heavy enough to balance nicely on most rods. They are a perfect 6-weight reel, in my opinion. Along with those two Martins, I also have a Redington CD 5/6 reel, spooled with some sort of AirFlo 6-weight WF line. The Redington weighs a little more than the Martins, so it balances well on a couple of the heavier rods, namely the Scott PowR-Ply.

OK, that's it for 6-weights. Check back in a week or two to read my even-shorter write-up of my 3-weights.

The Fives - 2023 Style

In my last post I wrote about my 4-weight rods and reels. This time let's talk about my 5-weight rods and reels, shall we? I don't have quite as many of these as I do 4's, but I would still say I have a good assortment, and they fill every niche that might pop up around here in the Great White North of Minnesota...

I have 5-weight rods that go from 6'6" at the shortest to 8'6" at the longest. Unlike my 4-weights, not all of my 5-weights are fiberglass. See if you can figure out which one isn't...

6'6" Cortland FR-2000. This is my shortest 5-weight rod. I got it several years ago, thinking I would use it to fish for carp or smallmouth bass or whatever happened to be swimming in the smallish warmwater creek that flows near my house. I did fish there once with this rod, but the lack of fish caught or seen that day made me not go back and try again. But I may at some point in time... Even if I don't, this is a fun rod to fish with, anywhere.

(I couldn't find a good pic of the short Cortland FR-2000, so here is a pic of a small bass that makes me happy)

7' Wright & McGill WaterSeal. This is an interesting rod. It is probably the most rare W&M rod you will ever find. And possibly the best casting. I have owned several W&M Featherlight rods over the years, including a tiny 5'6" yellow one that got me interested in glass rods in the first place. This WaterSeal was made from "3M Patented Fibers", and is nice and slow, but it has quite a bit of oomph built into it, too. I have owned it for a couple of years if not more, and I am still trying to figure out what I think about it. It's an interesting one, that's for sure!

7' Phillipson Registered Epoxite. At one point in time I owned three Registered Epoxites in various lengths, but this is the only one that incorporated a spigot ferrule into its design, making it the rarest of the bunch, as far as I can tell. Admittedly I have not had this out on the water very often. It's got a different feel than the other Phillipsons I have owned, I am sure because of the ferrule. I like it very much!

7'6" Cortland FR-2000. I like old Cortland rods. Especially FR-2000s and the old poop-colored Pro Crests. Every one that I have owned has been smooth and powerful. This is pretty much a perfect trout/bass/panfish rod.

7'10" Chris Barclay Progressive Series. This was from Mr. Barclay's original series of rods. I have heard a lot of people make the claim that this model was very slow, even using the term "sticky" on occasion. Maybe I got the oddball of the litter, but I have never found this rod to be slow at all. I think it has a lovely crisp action. But what do I know...

8' GlasTech. GlasTech rods are about as rare as a fiberglass fly rod could be. They were made by Dennis Franke in Mt. Horeb, WI, on blanks that were custom rolled by Mark Steffen. As far as I can recall, this is the only one I have ever seen listed for sale anywhere, although I have seen pics of others that weren't for sale, on Forums and such. This one is a little tip heavy in the hand, much like my beloved Scott glass rods. It can bomb a line, that's for sure! And it can present a fly nice and delicately at short distances. It is sweet!

8' Sage 580SFL. I have been lucky to have owned most of the fiberglass rods that Sage built, at one time or another, and this 580SFL is in the worst shape of all of them. Not that it is in terrible condition or anything, it just has a few cosmetic scuffs here and there. That enables me to not feel bad about fishing it! Like all the Sage glass that I have cast, it's a cannon. 

8' Scott PowR-Ply. This is another great rod, which I have written about several times. It rocks!

8'3" Larry Kenney 835. This mocha-colored rod is another great one. One of Larry's most popular tapers, it handles all casts with aplomb...

8'6" Sage 586LL. Hey, it's the only graphite rod I own nowadays! And it's the one I will never part with, as it has oodles of sentimental value. Plus, I have caught over a billion fish with it (estimated), so I don't want to get rid of its good juju.

Those are the rods. As far as my 5-weight reels go, they are very utilitarian, much like all my other reels. I have an assortment of different brands running from light in weight, to balance on my shorter rods, to a little heavier in weight, to balance on my longer rods, and a few others in between. Balance is the most important thing to me. Whether that makes sense or not, it is what works for me. Here are my reels:

From left to right, starting on the top row, and in order of weight from lightest to heaviest: Martin LM56, Ross Evolution #2, Lamson Velocity #2, Ross Gunnison Platinum #2, and the ol' trusty Lamson LP2. 

Come back in a couple of weeks to check out my lineup of 6-weight rods! I have a few nice ones!

The Fours - 2023 Style

The last time I wrote about my 4-weight rods was about a year and a half ago. You wouldn't think much would have changed in that short timeframe, but that's because you don't buy and sell fly rods with as much fervor as me! Few people do...

I love fly rods, and for some reason I have a deep yearning to try every brand of fly rod ever created. Or at least every fiberglass fly rod ever created! As I have mentioned before, I believe the fly rod is the coolest tool mankind has ever created, and if it's made out of fiberglass, it's coolness is multiplied by at least a billion. And if it's a fiberglass 4-weight, the coolness is beyond determination. I love me some glass fly rods!

Since 95% of my fishing is for trouts and sunfishes, 4-weight rods dominate my quiver. A good 4-weight can handle every sized fly I might ever find myself using while fishing for trouts and sunfish. Therefore, I own a large number of awesome 4-weight rods. All of my 4-weights are made out of fiberglass, and range in length from 6'9" to 8'8" in length. Some of my rods are the same as last year, so I won't go into great detail on those. Instead, if you want to read more about them, check out my previous 4-weight rundown HERE.

In order of length, going from shortest to longest, here are my current 4-weight rods:

6'9" Tiemco Fenwick DeLiar. This one literally just joined my arsenal. I have been wanting to get a Japanese Fenwick rod for a long time, but things didn't work out until now. This short 4-weight is super sweet, and a perfect rod for the tight brook trout creeks around here.

7' Vince Cummings Superlite. This is one sweet rod, that is surprisingly powerful for its size!

7' Steffen Bros. Green S-Glass. An extremely rare green Steffen glass rod. This casts as well as their more traditional reddish-brown rods.

7'2" Scientific Angler System 4. A classic, and as sweet a caster as everyone claims it is...

7'5" Chris Barclay 75P. I wasn't sure what I would think of this parabolic beauty, but I quickly became a big fan. Plus, with the ventilated grip, you can feel it flexing!

7'6" Scott F754/3. This rod is so sweet it hurts! It might be my favorite rod of all of them...

7'6" Sage SFL476. This is a fast and powerful glass rod. I recently heard that it was made to also throw a 5-weight line, and I believe it could do that easily...

7'6" Winston glass. As I have written about before, this belonged to one of my favorite customers at the fly shop I worked at, and I feel lucky to own it.

7'6" Hardy Sirrus Sintrix. These rods supposedly have some graphite in them, along with the fiberglass. Not sure, but it is a sweet caster!

7'6" Constable of Bromley Sceptre. This is a new acquisition for me. If you spend any time on the Fiberglass Flyrodders Forum you will hear glowing reviews of Sceptre rods. I have only had this out in the front yard so far, and it rocks. Not sure what I think of the bright yellow wraps, though...

7'7" Tiemco Glass Master. I got this last fall, and had the chance to fish it in October. It is smooth and crisp, and casts beautifully. Plus, the very first fish I caught on it was a big ol' slab of a rainbow, so that was fun.

7'9" Larry Kenney 794. This is another new acquisition. Larry was the first employee of the Scott Rod Co., and he brought all of his rod-making expertise to his own company several years ago. Just like all my Scott rods, this rod is awesome.

7'9" McFarland Dirty Martini. I am not sure if "Dirty Martini" is the name Mike McFarland gave these rods, or if it is a nickname given to them by the masses, but this rod is sweet. I acquired the blank early last year, and my friend Greg built it out for me (or, to be honest, his daughter did all the wraps). She did a great job!

7'10" Scott F794/4. I have a thing for Scott glass rods, and if they are maroon in color, it's more of a lust. There, I said it. 

8' Unstructured Glass. Vlad Malenkovic made some truly awesome rods, and I was extremely fortunate to have this one fall into my lap a few years ago. Smooth, powerful, and beautiful, this rod is a favorite go-to for me.

8'6" Bozeman Reel Co. prototype. Made by Dusty Smith, now of Livingston Rod Co, this was an early prototype rod for the Bozeman Reel Company, which has now gone back to only selling reels and not rods. This thing is truly awesome. Light and crisp, and good looking too!

8'8" McFarland S-Glass. This is one of my most recent acquisitions. This rod comes with a great reputation, and when I took it out in the yard last week, I was booming casts all over the place. It is going to be sweet!

Those are the rods. My 4-weight reels have changed up a bit, too. I now have 6 of them, and my goal when putting together my reel selection was to have light, medium, and heavy reels, as far as the actual weight goes, so that I have at least one reel that balances with every rod. When rigged up, I like the balance point to be on the top half of the cork, or maybe just a little up the blank from the cork, and these reels allow that to happen on all the rods.

From lightest to heaviest, they are: Martin LM45(WF line), Martin LM45(DT line), Ross Evolution 1.5, Ross Rhythm 1.5, Lamson Radius R2, Hatch Finatic 3+.

Come back soon to see my lineup of 5-weight rods!

 

La Salle Lake

The first family campsite of the year!

Our early summer has been filled with sports, unlike most recent years. Usually, by the beginning of July, we would have been on 3-100 camping trips, but this year we have only been on one. Not that I am complaining, we had a great time at softball, baseball, and soccer practices and games, but it seems strange to say we have only been camping once as a family so far. That one trip was loads of fun, though! 

I was trying to get a good pic of the sun, but this tree wouldn't get out of my way...

We stayed at La Salle Lake Recreation Area, which is just a few miles north of Itasca State Park, home of the headwaters of the Mississippi River. La Salle Lake is notable in its own right as being the deepest lake that is wholly within the state of Minnesota. It's something like 215 feet deep, or something like that... I am not sure exactly, since all of my fishing was in about 4 feet of water or less...

A fun thing to climb while on vacation, if you aren't deathly afraid of heights or ledges...

It was a family vacation, which included many extended family members on The Wife's side of the family, so I only fished one evening. That was fine by me; we were having loads of fun doing other things as well. The public shore fishing options on La Salle Lake are all congregated on the north end, so that is where I headed. There is a nice boat launch and a big fishing dock. If  I had wanted to I could have done some wading around, as well, but I stuck to dry land. 

I headed to the fishing dock first. Not sure what might be swimming around, I tied on a green Gurgler and cast it in towards some reeds. Something that was big enough to create a wake came out from the reeds and nailed within about 2 seconds. It was a big ol' bluegill. That was fun! After that more things came busting out of the reeds to attack my fly, including a medium sized largemouth, several rock bass, and a gigantic pumpkinseed. All of these fish were a hoot to catch, as you can probably imagine.

Rock Bass

Big ol' pumpkinseed!!!

It was getting close to 9pm, although there was still a lot of daylight left at that latitude at that time of the year. But I thought I better get back to the campsite, so I started to head back. I did stop at the boat landing on my way, and noticed that there was a plethora of similar looking reeds along the edges of the landing. Being a good fisherman, I decided to make "one last cast", which actually turned into about 50 casts, but I am glad I did. I hooked several more nice bluegills, and then I had something big come up and smash my Gurgler. Turned out to be a big ol' largemouth of about 18 inches. That was a ton of fun on my 4-weight rod! 

My 4-weight rod, an Unstructured Glass 8-footer

Big ol' bass

Another look, including my green Gurgler.

What a fun night on a great lake! If you are ever up in the Itasca area, make sure you stop by La Salle Lake and see if anything is biting.

Trout & Turkey 2021

For the past several years my friend Bryon and I have gone on at least one Trout Trip per year. These trips have always been around 3 days long, and have taken place somewhere within either Minnesota or Wisconsin. For this year's trip, Bryon proposed that we invite a 3rd person, his eldest son, Matt, and that we extend both the length of the trip, to seven days, and the distance from home to 11 hours away in western Nebraska. Oh, he also proposed that we turn it into a Trout & Turkey trip, as he and Matt would take the opportunity to try to shoot some Merriam's turkeys while we were there. After about 4 seconds of deliberation, I agreed to all these things. He had me at "Hey, wanna..."!

Some of the beauty of Fort Robinson State Park

I am going to make the assumption that most of you would never think of Nebraska as a destination for trout fishing. I feel safe in assuming this, because everyone I have talked to about this trip had never thought of Nebraska as a destination for trout fishing. Most of Nebraska is not a good trout fishing destination, but there are some sections of the state that do harbor trout streams, and some pretty high quality streams at that. You just need to know where to go.

Crossing the Missouri River on the way to Nebraska

We ended up in the far western corner of the state, not too far south of the South Dakota state line, in a section of Nebraska known as the Pine Ridge. The topography in this section reminds me a lot of the Black Hills of South Dakota, which are just a couple of hours to the north. There are rolling prairies, impressive rock formations, pine forests, and lush coldwater streams, some of which are home to brown, brook, rainbow, and even some cutthroat trout. There are also numerous ponds that hold all sorts of fish species.

White River

Sunset on our first night in Nebraska

Bryon's first fish of the trip

My first fish of the trip

We stayed in Fort Robinson State Park, which is just outside of the little town of Crawford. Fort Robinson is a big, sprawling expanse, and home to mule deer, antelope, turkeys, and they even have a resident bison herd. It also holds a section of the White River and Soldier Creek, both of which are home to trout. A bunch of little man-made ponds are in the Park, too, filled with a wide array of different fishes. Check out the following pics to get an idea of what we did:

Another sunset pic from the first night

Next morning we checked out some ponds. This was jam-packed with newly planted rainbows...

Plus a tiger trout or two (this was my second tiger ever)...

Plus a few big ol' sunfish

While we were fishing we realized we were being watched by some bison.

Another pond. This one had largemouth bass and panfish.

Then I hiked around in a little stream to see what I could find. Have you ever seen naturally occurring cement blocks in such a handy spot?!?!

First brown trout of the trip

Same.

Second brown of the trip

This pond was packed with miniature smallmouth bass.

One of those miniature smallmouth bass...

Then we stumbled upon a pond that was home to chunky brook trout.

The next day I dropped Bryon and Matt off at their turkey hunting lodge, and I spent the better part of the next four days hiking and fishing all by my lonesome. First I checked out the South Fork of Soldier Creek, in the Soldier Creek Wilderness Area. This creek had a new beaver pond around every corner. And fat brown and brook trout in each pond.

The first beaver pond I came across

This pool was stacked up with fish

A lovely, out-of-focus, brown

Scott F794/4 and Ross Evolution 1.5

The ever-present afternoon thunderclouds

Same.

The next day I hiked deeper into the Soldier Creek Wilderness Area in search of cutthroat trout. I heard that there were some hidden ponds a couple of miles in that held cutties, so I strapped on my backpack and headed out. It was a lovely hike, and all my gear worked great, but that is about the best I can say for this excursion. Trout were seen, but not caught. Let's never talk of this again, ok?

Your brave hero, heading out in search of cutties. The neon yellow shirt was on purpose, so as not to get shot by turkey hunters. It worked.

The weather changed every 4.5 minutes or so...

First of three secret ponds. I saw two trout swimming in this one. They both suck.

My pack and gear.

GFA Hoppers accounted for about 75% of the fish caught throughout the week.

These trees must have a death-grip on the hillside. Second secret pond sits below them. It had about 10 trout in it, that I could see. They all suck, too.

A rainstorm hit me without much warning, so I hung out under this tree, waiting for it to pass.

The sky cleared up on my hike back to civilization. What a pretty afternoon!

Same.

About 10 minutes after I got back to the truck, these clouds appeared, bringing rain, hail, and high winds.

As the storm was petering out, I drove around to see any wildlife that might be out and about. This was it. I call this one "Rainy Burros".

Sun came out about 3 minutes before sunset. 

Crazy clouds after the storm. I did not alter this shot at all.

One night I drove past a pond that was almost empty of water, for some unknown reason. I figured there was maybe 2 feet of water in the bottom, yet I was sure I saw something dimple the surface as I drove by. Being the annoyingly curious person that I am, I stopped the car and climbed down into the pond bottom, which was both smelly and mucky. I cast my hopper out about halfway across the muddy water, and it was immediately inhaled by a small but healthy looking sunfish. not only that, but my landing that sunfish caused the other inhabitants of this seemingly lifeless pond to go crazy. There were signs of fish moving around everywhere! I couldn't believe it. I spent the next half hour catching fish after fish after fish out of this mudhole, and they got bigger or more unbelievable as the night went on!

The muddy "pond", from the floor 

First sunfish from the "pond"

A chunky bluegill from the "pond"

I couldn't believe there was such a big ol' bass living in such little water! That is just mud on his belly...

Even a little crappie was living in there. What?!?!

My last day of fishing was filled with more adventure. First I bushwhacked into another secret pond, which was supposed to hold brook trout. I figured a secret pond that nobody knew about would be sure to have big, dumb brookies that would be fighting over my fly. Instead I caught one little perch in a couple of hours of flailing away. Ugh.

A lovely, secret pond

These two mule deer showed up to see what was going on.

Bison? Longhorn? Sasquatch? Who knows...

I left the first pond that sucked, and went back to the brook trout pond I had had luck at. And these two mule deer showed up again. I am pretty sure they were the same ones I saw at the first pond. I would go on to see them three more times that day......

This longhorn steer wanted to see what I was up to. He seemed quite impressed with my angling skills...

Brook trout on a Mushroom & Swiss Bugger

Painted Turtles were everywhere 

Another fat sunfish

The brook trout seemed too colorful for this time of year...

Last trout of the trip

Sunset on our last night

The moon.

Thanks for checking out my trip report. If you ever have a chance to head to the trouty part of Nebraska, I say go for it! I think you will have a good time!