New Gear for 2010

I stopped by Tailwaters this past weekend to check in and see what's new in the realm of flats fly fishing equipment for the season. Here are some interesting tidbits:

1) The new Simms Flats Boot - these are amazing and the greatest advancement in warm water wading since Patagonia first came up with the concept years ago. I've always been a fan of the Marlwalker and have burned through a few pairs in the past decade (no flats boot will stand up the abrasive effects of sand and water for very long when worn almost daily). But, when you put the latest version of the Marlwalker side-by-side with the Simms, there's no comparison. A pair of the Flats Boots came home with me.

2) Awesome new flies - I have to say that Tailwaters is becoming quite the Carp Headquarters. Their selection of carp flies is continuously growing and when you add Hexes, crayfish, and other "cross-over" trout patterns, you could fill several boxes from their racks. Pictured above is one that really drew my attention - Whitlock's Improved Rubber-legged Red Fox Squirrel nymph (I think that's the correct name). It's from Rainy's and has all the great features a carp fly should have - even a weed guard. In the commotion of taking a 7 year old and a 2 year old into a fly shop (thank God for Honey Girl!) I somehow forgot to grab a couple for trials when the carp come up for their pre-spawn feed. Good reason for a return trip!

3) New rods - Along with carrying my favorite carp rod (the TFO TiCr"X" 7'6" 6 wt), there are some other interesting sticks coming to the rod rack at Tailwaters. Scott is releasing an 8 foot rod in 6 and 8 wt. (A3 series) as competitors in the recent "warmwater/bass rod" craze. Bart said he was able to give the 8wt. a work-out and it cast like a rod costing twice as much. The six weight should be VERY INTERESTING. I'm trying to lay my hands on one for a casting session. We'll let you know. Combine these with the Sage Bluegill and you have some great, value-point choices for a combo carp/bass/Texas coast rod.

4) Hip packs (does anyone call them "fannies" anymore?) - William Joseph, FishPond, Simms, Patagonia, etc. - there are packs out there APLENTY. No matter if you want waterproof, breathable mesh hip belts, adjustable water bottle pockets, load suspension adjusters, etc.; there is a hip pack out there for you. Check out the new MAGseries from WJ - VERY cool (hey Bart - order me one!).

Lower Mtn. Fork (Beaver's Bend) Update

I made a trip to SE Oklahoma this past Thursday to check the Lower Mountain Fork through Beaver's Bend State Resort. The buzz has been fairly heavy about the area - message boards were filled with dread about the proposed repair to the turbines and the associated flood of water that was to be released through the spillway to moderate the lake level. Evidently "Plan B" - a solution involving repair of the turbines one at a time while allowing flow through the dam directly into the park water - is a happy compromise and will allow angling in Zone 1 for the next few months.

G. Tolle and I left Denton EARLY Thursday morning and were on the water before 9 am. There were only three cars at the lower nature trail bridge parking area when we got there - one was a hiker that headed off through the woods and another was two guys from the Okla. Fish and Game Dept. waiting on the stocking truck. The truck pulled up a few minutes later and we witnessed the transfer of trout to the pickup. It kind of like sausage . . . if you like it, you probably don't want to see it made! The stocking process is much less precise than one would think given the frail nature of trout. The OWD guys said they were adjusting their stocking placement because they could not cross the stream with the water level. So, they were going to put a few more fish upstream. If you have ever waded upstream from Cold Hole to the lower trail bridge, you might have noticed a 10" diameter blue PVC pipe on the right side of the stream. This is a stocking pipe. They back the truckdown to the other end of the pipe, attach a large hose and let'em slide. The trout get what has to be (for them) a terrifying 100' water park slide that ends with a dump into the stream.

Thursday was bright and sunny and as long as the sun was directly on the water, fishing was tough. All the fish we hooked before lunch (at 2:00pm) were holding DEEP. The water level was perfect for Spillway Creek - enough water for lots of fish cover but not too deep/fast to make wading difficult. We did not catch many fish in larger pools and, if we did, they were holding in pockets at the tails of the pools. Most trout caught were holding in smaller, deep pockets in sections with boulders or other "hydraulic" producing structure. The area downstream of the upper bridge was especially productive in the afternoon.

An interesting fact is that all of the fish we caught were large - we didn't catch a fish less than 14" and most were around 16. They were pretty beat up stockers with the usual blunt fins and less than magazine quality coloration but some of them fought very well. Glenn caught one just upstream of Cold Hole that jumped several times and took of upstream, leaping the whole way.

All fish were caught on some variation of the usual "Oklahoma rig" - an 8 foot 4X leader with a #14 heavy BH Prince and a #18 little black or olive midge as a dropper on 6X.

On another note, I fished my new 7'9" TFO Finesse 4 wt. and LOVED IT for the type of short range, "weave-through-the-woods" fishing we do at Beavers Bend (and especially on the Blue). It was just long enough to allow a good drift and was SO easy to maneuver through the tight cover along the stream. It had enough backbone to cast the nymph rig and fight the larger trout we caught (my biggest of the day was a 17" that just about "maxed out" the little rod).

The One

The "One" is a new, custom-made, TFO Finesse 6'9" one weight. It was made for me by Norm Goheen of Dallas and is an absolute gem!

Prospecting small, alpine streams for native trout is one of my favorite forms of fly fishing; usually in central or southern Colorado. I love backpacking up a new drainage and finding pockets of seemingly unmolested brookies and cutthroats. Traveling for 4-5 hours in the morning, setting up camp, and then fishing until dinner/dark is not a bad way to spend a day in the mountains. Make that 5-6 days in a row and you can pretty much cover two drainages - fish up one, cross a high saddle or pass, and fish down the next for a nice loop.

My rod of choice for these trips in the past has been an old Orvis One Ounce (7 foot, two piece, 4wt.). This is a wonderfully accurate little rod with the action of bamboo. The only problem is that the two piece tube doesn't fit well on a backpack . . . anywhere it is packed, it snags limbs, "clanks", or gives me the uneasy feeling of carrying an aluminum lightning rod. Also, there are many times when even a light, slow action 4wt. is TOO much rod.

I wanted a very light, medium action, 4 pc. one or two weight to play with the small cutthroat and brookies in the streams. I'm not concerned with distance; the rod needs to throw a #14 Humpy or Stimulator in a teacup at 20 feet. I noticed that Temple Fork added a one weight to their Finesse line this year. The Finesse series is a great line of rods and the BEST trout rods for the money on the market. I cast one at the TFO office in Dallas and knew it was the rod for the job - the four pieces measured just over 20 inches each. The only thing I did not like was the handle and guides. There are reasons TFO is able to bring great rods to the market at an unbelieveable price. All the Finesse rods have the same handle - from a 8'9" 6 wt. down to the little 1 wt. This made the little rod off-balance when loaded with a reel and line (and I'm a fanatic about rod balance). Also, the double-foot guides on the rod added unnecessary weight, bringing the rod to 2.4 oz. I knew this rod could weigh less than 1.75 ounces and told Jim Shulin, "I'll take a blank - and who's the best rod builder around?"

His answer - "Norm Goheen."

I called Norm and told him what I wanted . . . cork reel seat, single foot guides, minimal wraps, shave off every extra gram of weight. Two weeks later he called and said, "I have a rod for you and it's the tiniest thing I've ever built!"

And it IS TINY. It weighs 1.472 oz. on an analytical balance in my lab and balances perfectly with the little reel pictured. I ordered a custom cut 22", 1-5/8" diameter tube from REC (a "standard" 9 foot 4 pc. tube is 29" long and 2" in diameter - SEE THE PHOTO ABOVE). In backpacking terms, the difference in weight and length is amazing!

This rod will get its first trial next week, on a trip into the Weminuche Wilderness of Colorado (the exact target is the Williams Creek drainage). I have resisted all temptations to go to the local pond and try the rod out on some bluegills - this rod was made for trout and will be christened justly!

Expect a full report in about two weeks . . .

Getting Close to the Ultimate Carp Rod

Product Review

Temple Fork Outifitters TiCrX 7'6" 6 wt.

Flats fishing for carp at Lake Ray Roberts is a game of dichotomies; flies need to sink but cannot hit the surface too hard, leaders need to be strong enough to resist abrasion and land big fish but thin so as to not spook them, and rods need to have the backbone to control a six pound fish headed for timber but also be able to hit a teacup at 20 feet. Catching these fish can require standing on some pretty thin "ledges" when it comes to your equipment.

I've been searching for the Ultimate Carp Rod (UCR) for sometime - really since I first started fishing for them in the late 90's. At first I used a 9 foot, 6 wt. Sage RPL because it was the same rod I used for light redfishing on the coast and for small bonefish in the Yucatan. This rod definately had the backbone to handle any cast/wind and when combined with a Lamson LP-3 (one of my favorite reels of all time), it could stop a small freight train. Problems arose when I had to cast it short (<25>

And that's what the majority of carp fishing at Ray Roberts is . . . short range. Most of our casts are 20-25 ft. Subtract 9 feet for a leader and you don't have much flyline past the tip of the rod. Many of today's "fast" action flyrods do not begin to load (and therefore become accurate) until you have 30-35 feet of FLYLINE past the tip. What usually happens when you try to cast one of these rods at short range is you crash the butt of the leader and/or last few feet of flyline into the water on top of your target. Carp REALLY don't like this and will respond with a boil of mud and a wake streaking across the flat.

What is needed in a UCR is a rod that is not so fast in the upper third of the blank but that has enough stiffness in the lower third to give you fish-fighting "backbone."

Length is another consideration. A nine foot flyrod is not going to load at short range as fast as a shorter rod. A seven and a half foot rod will give you another foot and a half of flyline out there to help straighten a leader - and we've all read our Lefty and know that a straight leader is a good thing. This reduction can only be carried so far - accuracy at distance drops dramatically when a rod gets shorter than 7 feet. As I said, MOST of our casts are at short range. Every trip, however, gives us an opportunity to throw a "Hail Mary" at a departing drum or large bass on the edge of a flat. All of a sudden, an angler needs to throw 50 or 60 feet of line . . . NOW . . . with a minimum of false casts. Shorter, slower rods are not very good at this; a UCR needs to be between 7.5 and 8 feet long.

One last criteria - it helps if the rod has a "saltwater" setup. A full wells grip and fighting butt to battle large fish and larger stripping and snake guides to clear line quickly and get fish on the reel.

Well, I have found a happy middle ground. It is the Temple Fork Oufitters TiCrX 7'6" 6 wt. This rod is fast, like the rest of the "X's", but not. It has a softer tip and will throw a nice loop and straighten a leader at 18 feet (yes, I measured it!). The rod still has enough backbone in the butt to lean on BIG fish. I caught a 9.5 lb. carp with it about a month ago and had no problem getting the fish in. Luckily, I was fishing a new, 12 lb. bass leader and could really pull on the fish - the rod bent deep into the butt section but I could tell it was no where near "stressed". That same butt section strength will enable this rod to throw a quick 70 footer with 2 false casts.

The rod has a full wells grip and large guides. The fighting butt is my only real "gripe" with the rod - it's too big. Unlike Sir Mix-a-Lot, I don't like big butts and the folks at TFO put the same size fighting butt on all the TiCrX models (I understand this - it saves them $$ and enables you to purchase a great rod at $250). I'm a fanatic about rod/reel balance and want that rod to balance right under my thumb - about an inch back from the edge of the grip. The standard butt balances just fine on the 9' models but puts too much weight on the back of the little 7.5 footer. With my venerable LP-3, the balance point was two inches up from the back of the grip. So, my rod received a much needed "buttectomy." I removed the fighting butt and about the last1/3" of threaded reel seat (after measuring the fit of the largest reel foot I would use) then attached a smaller, one inch fighting butt. This moved the balance point to the middle of the handle - acceptable, for now. The addition of a light, modern, large arbor reel like a Lamson Litespeed or Ross Evolution will make it PERFECT! Check out the photo above - you can tell the difference between my "semi-custom" 6wt. and a standard TiCrX (you can also see this rod in action in the video further down the blog).

This same outfit will be great for redfish (I'll let you know in three weeks when I get back from South Carolina) and as a canoe rod for bass. It's a quick, ACCURATE little fish fighter that would make a great addition to your warmwater arsenal!