The Sixes- 2021 Edition

I don't think I have ever written about my 6-weight rods before. Which means that it's high time that I do, don'tcha think? I don't have nearly as many 6-weights as I do 4- and 5-weights, but the ones I have are just as sweet. What am I waiting for?!?!

Only five 6-weights...

First up is one of the sweetest glass rods ever made. It's a 7'6" Vince Cummings River Rat. The River Rat came in a few different lengths and line ratings, but this is the only variation I have ever waggled. My former boss at Bob Mitchell's Fly Shop, Mike Alwin, has a River Rat that he built from a blank, but he never actually showed it to me, despite years of my nagging and whining. Last year I found this one for sale, so I snapped it up as fast as I could. I guess I showed him, huh?

River Rat

I just recently acquired this 4-piece 7'6" 6-weight Berkley Parametric. I haven't actually even had a chance to put a reel on it and take it out in the yard for a test spin. That is the problem with acquiring fly rods in Minnesota in January...

It still has its emblem!

My third 6-weight is a powerful Sage 679SFL glass rod. This is pretty much a perfect bass rod. I used to have its cousin, the 686SFL, which was a total powerhouse. In fact, it was too powerful for me. It felt like a 7- or 8-weight rod instead of a 6. I know it's crazy that I sold one of my Sage glass rods, which some people would say borders on lunacy, but I like the 679 much better.

Next up is the glass rod that I have owned the longest, if I do my math correctly. It's an 8' Berkley Parametric 6-weight that I acquired, along with a couple of other glass rods, a long time ago. You can find Parametrics around quite often, but finding one with a spigot ferrule, like this one, is sort of rare. I don't think this one had ever been cast before I got it. Parametrics are not for everyone, but I love mine!

Berkley Parametric 8-footer

I don't know this to be 100% fact, but I fully believe that the first generation of yellow Scott Pow-R Ply glass rods were built on blanks supplied to them from Lamiglas. Which pretty much means that my vintage yellow Lamiglas Galaxy 5-piece 8' 6-weight pack rod is also a Scott, am I right? It sure looks a lot like my yellow Scott 5-weight. And they feel very similar while casting, too, although the Lamiglas doesn't feel quite as weird when not casting. Whatever the case, it's sweet!

Lamiglas Galaxy 8-footer

Well, that was a short and sweet list of 6-weight rods, huh? Since I don't have very many 6-weight rods. I don't need as many 6-weight reels, either. In fact I only have two. First up is my beloved Lamson LP-2 that I have had for eons. Second is a lovely Nautilus FWX 5/6. Talk about a reel that purrs, the Nautilus is like a full-grown panther getting its belly rubbed! It is smooth!

Not sure if I will write about my 3- or 7-weights... Not very many of either, so we'll have to see. 5-weights are up next. Look for it in the next week or two.

The Fours - 2021 Edition

My quiver of 4-weight rods has evolved over the past few months. I think the evolution has made my arsenal even better and more awesome, but that is probably a subjective thought. You might look at the rods I have and think they are all junk. You can have that opinion, you just can't espouse it here on my blog. I'm the blogmaster here; if you have differing opinions, get your own blog. :)

The Quiver

Most of my rods are 4- and 5-weight rods, since most of my fishing is for trout and panfish. In this post I will write about my 4-weight rods, beginning with the shortest in length and moving up to the longest. Let's get this out of the way right from the get-go: They are all sweet rods! Woot!

The Quiver, Version 2...

One of my shortest 4-weight is my recently acquired Phillipson Registered Epoxite Midge EF66. This rod waggles like few others. It is slow, possibly too slow for most people. But it casts beautifully. Love it.

The other 6'6" rod in my quiver is a sweet little Winston glass rod that I lucked into last winter. It actually might cast better with a 5-weight line, but it is labeled as a 4-weight, so we will leave it in this category.

Winston 6'6" 4wt

I have two 7' 4-weights. First up is my green Steffen S-glass. Most Steffen glass rods are a beautiful dark burgundy. This was one of their early green ones. Like all Steffen rods, it casts beautifully.

Steffen 7-Footer

The other 7-footer is my Vince Cummings Superlite, which I have written about before. It is so light in the hand I hardly notice it is there. But it can cast pretty much any sized trout fly all day long. It rocks.

Vince Cummings Superlite

Scientific Angler sold some awesome glass rods back in the late 70s that were built on Fisher blanks. Their System 4 is a 7'2" 4-weight that is the cream of the crop. A great rod!

System 4

I have a few 7'6" 4-weights, and they are all superb. First up is a Sage SFL476, one of the mystical glass rods that Sage made back in the early 80s. Probably the fastest 4-weight I own, it can do everything.

Sage SFL476 and trout

My black Scott F754/3 is my go-to rod. All Scott glass rods are awesome, and this is no exception.

Scott F764/3

 

My Winston Stalker 7'6" glass rod is special to me. It belonged to one of my favorite customers at the fly shop I used to work at, and I was lucky to be able to acquire it when he died. It is both regal and utilitarian. Awesome!

7'6" Winston

I just got this awesome Scott F794/4, which is a 7'10" beaut. I suspect it will become one of my favorites in no time. Have I mentioned that all Scott glass rods are awesome?

There are a couple of 8-footers in my quiver. First up is a Diamondback Diamondglass rod. These rods developed a cult following amongst glass rod aficionados. This is understandable, as they rock!

Diamondglass 8-footer

Vladan Milenkovic is a musician in Boston, but he also made amazing fiberglass rods for a while. His Unstructured Glass rods are amazing, and somehow I was lucky enough to stumble onto this one a couple of years ago. It is a 4-piece model that Vlad built for the loaner program on The Fiberglass Manifesto website. I don't think it ever got loaned out, though. If it ever was loaned out it didn't get much use. It is an extraordinary casting tool! And beautiful as well!

Unstructured Glass 8-Footer

My last 4-weight is an 8'6" prototype model from the Bozeman Rod Company, which no longer sells rods. The guy who built the rods for Bozeman, Dusty Smith, now sells his rods through his own company, the Livingston Rod Company. He has a reputation as an expert rod craftsman. This is a sweet rod that can cast a mile. I love it!

Bozeman Rod Company 8'6"

So, those are my current 4-weight rods. 

My reels that go with these 4-weight rods have also changed over the past year. I am very happy with the options I now have. No matter how light or heavy the rod is, I can always find a reel that will balance it out nicely. My 4-weight reels start with: a lovely green Orvis CFO III Disc, an older Orvis Battenkill 3/4 Click & Pawl, a Ross Evolution 1.5, and a Ross Gunnison 1. All of them purr like kittens, and I haven't had any issues with any of them. Woot!

End of 2020 Celebration

Happy 2021! I know 2020 was a bad year for some people, so it's good to move on to something new. Unlike a lot of people, my 2020 wasn't much different than any other year, and in fact there were some pretty good parts of it. 

One good thing that happened in 2020 was the tweaking of my rod and reel arsenal. I am always looking to try out new gear to see what I like. I don't know how many different rods and reels I have tried out over the past few years, trying to find the ones that especially speak to me, but it has been a lot. 2020 saw the accumulation of some great new stuff, and the moving on of some stuff that I couldn't find a connection with. I think I am finally to the point where I feel confident with pretty much every piece of fly fishing equipment I own. Although I have had that same thought before...

I have acquired some awesome new (actually lightly used) rods this year. The rod that gets me the most excited is my new Scott F794/4 glass rod. For one thing, it's a Scott, and every Scott glass rod I have ever cast has been super sweet. Secondly, it's a perfect size for pretty much all the trout fishing I do up here in the Upper Midwest: 7'10" 4-weight. Thirdly, it's a 4-piece pack rod, so it will work great when I hike in to more remote streams, like I plan to do on our Trout Trip 2021, which is planned for this upcoming May. This Scott rod is sure to be one of my favorites!

Scott F794/4, Yay!

Vince Cummings rods have an aura about them. Vince was a rod builder from back in the day. His fiberglass rods are hard to find. They are excellent casting tools, so nobody wants to get rid of theirs. Somehow I was lucky enough to obtain two of them this past year: a 7'6" River Rat, and a 7' 4wt Superlite. Both rods are as sweet as can be. I used the Superlite this fall while chasing trout in Southeast Minnesota. It handled small nypmhs and dries easily, and it had plenty of muscle for the size 6 and 8 BH Wooly Buggers I was throwing too. What a rod!

Vince Cummings Superlite 7' 4wt

First fish I ever caught on the Superlite.

After making a mental list of all the rods and reels I acquired in 2020, I have decided that there are too many to continue writing about in a single post, so look for them in future posts. I will be redoing my lists of 3-, 4-, 5-, and 6-weight rods in the near future. I will point out the new acquisitions in those posts. For now, have a very Happy New Year, and a wonderful 2021 filled with all the gear you desire! 

Last Hurrah

I convinced the family to go on one last comping trip before the Minnesota weather turns terrible and none of us ever want to leave the house again... During this time of the Coronavirus, Minnesotans and all Upper Midwesterners seem to be heading to campgrounds in droves, so it was a little tough to find a spot that wasn't already spoken for, but eventually I was able to find a fun site, not too far from our house. It is my newfound policy to never give out the location of our travels, so let's just say it was somewhere in the northern half of the Continental United States. If you expect more info you clearly don't know me very well.

Our home away from home.

The entire weekend was pretty much perfect, except for the annoyingly loud family that was playing catch right outside our camper well after quiet hours on the first night. Thankfully they quieted down as soon as the hero of our story went and looked at them menacingly. Oh, he also asked nicely, so maybe that is why they quieted down. Being menacingly polite usually works wonders, if you ask our hero...

On a hike/death march.

In our party were 2 pre-teen girls. Apparently they were too cool to hang with us, so in this pic from our hike they are up near the end of this gravel road. 

The weather was perfect, the terrain was beautiful, the hikes/death marches were not too grueling, and the food was amazing. What more could you ask for?!?! Oh, yes, and the fishing was superb, too! I got up early both mornings and got a little bit of fishing in. To be honest, I got up too early the first morning, meaning I had to sit around in the front seat of the Family Truckster, waiting for it to get light enough for me to see my hands in front of my face. Who knew that the sun comes up so late in the middle of October? Not this night owl, that's for sure...

Waiting for the sun...

I told The Missus that I would be back in time for breakfast, so once the sun finally came up I had about an hour to fish before I had to blast. I know the fish in this particular stream love Wooly Buggers, so I tied on one of my Mushroom & Swiss Buggers, and it proved to be the correct choice. At the end of the hour I had landed about 15 trout and one nice chub, and I missed many others. It was epic.

A wonderful spot.

I had a little bit more time on the second morning, so I decided to park in the same spot, but head downstream to see if the fish got bigger the farther they were from civilization. The action wasn't as fast and furious, but I did manage to land about 8 trout in an hour and a half or so. Plus the 2nd day's chub was quite larger than the first day's chub. So there's that. And I would say the average size of the trout was bigger than the first day. Epic yet again!

This big boy wouldn't stay in the net, so I snapped a quick pic before I got him back in the water. Not the best photo quality, but oh well.

The rest of the weekend was spent with the family, hiking, exploring, eating s'mores, and just generally having fun. A wonderful way to end the camping season. Can't wait for next year!

Last trout of the trip, and probably of the calendar year for me. A great way to finish things up!

 

Getting Together

 As I have written before, I have a couple of buddies who are as nutty about fiberglass rods as I am, and we sometimes get together, with our glass rods, and do a little bit of casting out in the yard outside my office building. I will call these two buddies Peter and Greg, because those are their names. If they wanted to remain anonymous they shouldn't have become buddies with me...

Just a few of the rods we were trying out...

With all the Covid stuff happening this year, we hadn't gotten together to do any casting all summer. We finally were able to get a day that worked for all of us, so these two nutty dudes came over last Thursday at high noon. Somehow we lucked out with the Minnesota weather, as we had a beautifully warm and cloudless day. We all brought all the rods we had acquired since the last time we got together, plus a few others, and we had a fun hour or five of casting. 

Greg (foreground) & Peter (background), trying out rods.

Greg has fallen deep into the world of rod building, and he has started to pump out some beautiful, high quality builds using Lamiglas blanks. I believe he now has every rod in the Lamiglas Honey Blank lineup, and he brought them all. My favorite of those was his 6'6" 3wt, not necessarily because it seemed like a good fishing tool, but more so because I had never felt a rod that flexed so far into the handle. It seemed as though the reelseat itself was flexing along with the rod, which I think is impossible, but that's what it felt like. If I was actually fishing, I would have chosen one of his other rods, but for casting in the yard, that little 3wt sure was something...

Four of Greg's Lamiglas rods. The 6'6" 3wt is 2nd from the bottom. That is one noodly rod!

Peter brought his two Fred Paddock rods, which are both super sweet, along with his Orvis Superfine Glass and Orvis Fullflex "A" 6wt. I brought my two Vince Cummings rods, my Larry Kenney 5wt, and a few others. All of the rods were sweet. As you may have heard me say a billion times before, I believe that the fly rod is the coolest tool that man has ever invented. Can't wait for the next casting get-together!

Winston glass.

St. Croix glass

Because of the Corona and susceptible family members, we wore gloves and masks for the first time at one of our get-togethers. Afterwards we all went out and robbed a bank. Don't tell anyone...

Trout Trip 2020-And-A-Half: Weisse Wasser

First fish of the Trip. Look at those cool spots!

There is a river complex in southeastern Minnesota which has a reputation as being very popular amongst trout fishers, because it is comprised of three high quality trout streams along with several other smaller feeder creeks. There are literally dozens of miles of public access within this complex, with excellent trout habitat throughout. Add to that several public and private campgrounds in the area, and you have a terrific destination to do a little angling. My buddy, Bryon, who I go with on our Annual Springtime Trout Trip every year, and I decided to do another, shorter Trout Trip to this very destination this past weekend. It was a hoot!

We began Trout Trip 2020-And-A-Half on the northern branch of this particular river complex, because we were going to camp on that branch. The northern branch has its proponents, but overall the water quality and habitat is not quite as good as on the other branches. We got a few fish, and I even caught a nice rainbow on a perfectly placed grasshopper imitation, which rarely happens for me. (I mean the catching a fish on a grasshopper rarely happens... The perfect placement happens often, if I can toot my own horn for a second...)

Nice rainbow on a hopper. Look at those cheeks!

First rod/reel of the trip: Vince Cummings Superlite 7' 4wt glass & Orvis CFO III Disc 

Bryon and a buttery brown.

We moved on to the middle branch of the complex later that day. The section we were fishing is as lovely as a trout stream can be. The water was in perfect shape, and the fish were, sometimes, willing to be caught. Actually they seemed to be more off than on, but some were caught throughout the afternoon. At one point I caught three nice fish in four casts, but then I didn't get a bite for the next couple of hours. I guess that's fishing for ya!

A beautiful section of stream!

A chunky bow. This was the 3rd of the three fish in 4 casts. Each one was bigger than the last one.

Second rod/reel: Larry Kenney 8'3" 5wt glass & Ross Evolution #2

Sunday morning was spent on a different section of that middle branch. Fishing was slow, despite more beautiful water. To end the weekend we decided to skip over to the south branch of the river complex. We found a newly-rehabilitated stretch of stream that looked great, but the word on the street was that the trouts hadn't moved into the new habitat yet. Being the two stubborn dudes that we are, Bryon and I both scoffed at the word on the street, and jumped in with both feet. I am glad we did, since on my 4th or 5th cast I hooked a slab of a rainbow. Being the honest fisherman that I am, I will estimate it at somewhere between 15"-25" in length, and 12"-30" in girth. In other words, I didn't measure it. But it was the biggest trout I have caught in a looooooooong time. What a hoot! I hooked another about five minutes later that would have been close to that size, but he went aerial a second or two after I hooked him and he threw the hook. What a jerk!

Big ol' slab of a rainbow!

Me, landing that big ol' 'bow with the grace of a ballerina...

Third rod/reel: Bozeman (now Livingston) Rod Co. 8'6" 4wt glass & Ross Gunnison #1

We had a great time fishing, and we are already starting to plan Trout Trip 2021, which is sure to be quite the trip! Woohoo!