Home Forums Fishing Flyfishing Rod and reel for small creeks and streams

It is. It's funny when people lose sight of that. All fishing is good.

+1

It is really funny when a "purist" gives you the look because you just tied on a black marabou jig, when all a wooly bugger is is a marabou jig on a straight hook.

I get there are folks who like to limit themselves in ways for the challenge but somewhere in there they lost sight of the fun IMO.

Several years ago I was sitting in a rocker on the front porch of the fly shop in Coburn PA next to Penns Creek. I was having a lunch and a beer and relaxing after a really satisfying morning of fishing. Two gents came up and asked how I'd done, told them well and they'd not caught anything. They asked what I got them on and it was mostly stonefly nymphs. You would have thought I'd told them I was using dynamite.

Ah well, enjoy what you do.

Another vote for the Cabela's Close Quarter Rod. I've had no problem throwing flies 40 plus feet either. E

Love It!

I take it a little farther ... I keep a few bare hooks in my fly box. Sometimes it can be educational to float a real live grasshopper over what seems to be barren water. Once in a while you get a real shock doing that. Not barren water, mind you, but one day I'd been fishing a stretch of creek and picking up 6 - 9 inch trout. Sun hit the water, things sort of went dead. I re-tied and tossed a grasshopper into the upper end of a large, pool where the waves and bubbles from the riffle at the top faded and let it float out into the middle. I near crapped myself when a ballpark 30 pound chinook salmon rose up out of the bottom of the creek. Didn't hit, but ... daaaaang.

Dry flies are fun, wet flies are fun, nymphs are fun. Gotta remember that each is a replica of something living .. sometimes y' gotta step back to the original. Nothin' wrong with going old-school now and then.

Tom

I both spin fish and fly fish and personally dislike the douche bags in both camps. Don't believe they exist in both camps, read this thread. "They (pick a side) think they're better than us, well we can out fish them any day, they (pick a side) suck, I don't". It's the same with hunters. Heck, we have more pricks on this forum than would be created if every blind person on earth suddenly took up sewing. Heck, I'm probably one of them.

I just plumb love to FISH. I will use flies, lures, plastic, and yes bait to catch fish, though I mostly use artificials of one sort or another. The object is to catch fish, the how is your personal business, what ever tickles your fancy. Do not care what others use. I get a kick out of fly fishermen using "strike indicators" just a fancy name for a "bobber".

Fish and let fish is my motto.

Cannot argue, but have a background that required an ability to get really horrible fishermen into fish. And many were serious challenges!

There is a huge difference between fly-fishing bobbers and a chunk of bait presented about any old way...

Just picked up a like new Reddington 5 wt 9' 4 piece with reel and line for $40 at garage sale perfect loaner rod for local lakes.

Been a fisherman all my life, but just began fly fishing a few years ago. My very first fish on a fly was a 24" rainbow trout! Caught on a 5-wt.

You've been stung, the venom will last a lifetime...........................................

This will do it.



Plus a 28" carp on the same 5-wt.

Nice pics carp are fun on the fly.

P--thanks. It took me 1/2-hour to bring that carp to net.

My starter small stream/brookie rod in the 60's was an old Carcia Conolon 5 1/2' ultra light spinning rod with the split rings, upon which I mounted a small fly reel (a Meisselbach Airex), both acquired form my earnings as a newspaper boy. Still have the reel. The little rod was stiff but could really launch flies in tiny streams and beaver ponds, with a reduced backcast-hangup factor. Caught its share of Vermont brookies.

Since then, the shortest and lightest I have used is a 7' for 4wt rod I tied up in the 1970's from a kit that Cabelas once sold. Early generation graphite.

That is about to change, however. I now have on the bench a glass Herters blank given to me by a friend years ago. Its an ultralight spinning blank about 5 1/2 long with just a little bit more spine than you'd find in typical wet noodle fly rods of today, and I plan to make a dedicated fly rod out of it. That old Meisselbach Airex ought to fit just about perfect.

Modest, perhaps, but....just right.

Blu_Cs I find this statement interesting. I don't see it that way, Todays rods to me are much stiffer then rods I have fished with even just 15 to 20 years ago. I am a pretty big guy and my casting isn't something anyone is going to remark on other than to say what the hell is he doing. So a stiff rod seems to smooth my overpowering out some. Anyways I think across the board for the most part blanks of like actions are stiffer than those of the past.

MCC:

The comparable weight class graphite blanks are stiffer, but the glass ones are limper in my experience.

Thus, an equivalent weight graphite fly blank will be stiffer than a glass fly blank.

However when comparing this glass ultralight spinning blank to an equivalent glass fly rod blank, the spin blank has a bit more spine.

While the conversation has moved away from Tenkara, I thought I'd throw this out. It's my latest rod purchase and germane to the small stream topic. Consider it a fixed line equivalent to the Cabela's CGR when it comes to value for money.

Nissin Pro-Spec 3207 6:4 zoom rod. A shosh over 2 oz and of higher quality than other rods not being manufactured in Japan. Zooms from 2.7 to 3.2 meters (9-11 feet). Casts a level #3 fluoro line no problem and I don't doubt a #2.5 would also work. Kind of nice in streams with a lot of over head cover, where a 12 footer is a headache. Also available as a 7:3

Purchased from Amazon Japan, shipped to the USA.

https://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/B010NWEWA8/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Currently just over $100 + about $15 shipping. Add a few more smaller items to spread the cost of the shipping and its a true bargain. Directly compare it to the TenkaraUSA Rhodo at $250.

Now as to the "Tenkara is not fly fishing", let us remember that in the early days of fly fishing in Europe, where our US traditions arise for the most part, there were no reels. Everything was "Tenkara". Dame Juliana Berner and Isaak Walton were using fixed line rods. Google "pesca Valsesiana" to see how a traditional fixed line style of fishing has remained unchanged in Italy for centuries.

Interesting read Scott, I first started fishing with a "fixed line rod " ( bamboo no less) and a bobber........... . I have done my share of "dabbing" in small streams, don't have much need for a reel doing that. Have fun with your new rod.