After a productive but exhausting business trip last week, followed immediately by a wedding over the weekend, I decided that I was entitled to some "self-care" time (as my fishing buddy David terms it). The only self-care I am really proficient at is fishing, so I took the day off from work, threw a lunch and my wading boots in a backpack and hiked down to the river to say hello to the little coastal rainbows.

Since the rain came too quickly for me to give it a try over memorial day weekend, I decided to take out my Fountainhead tenkara rod. My previous tenkara experience had been on a large tailwater, and it seemed high time I try it out on the kind of mountain stream it was made for. 

The Fountainhead Caddis 360 is a 12 foot deep flexing telescopic tenkara rod. Last time I took it out, I used a 12 foot level line and two feet of tippet, making a line two feet longer than the rod. On the windy tailwater, this level line cut through the wind, but didn't have the delicate feel I was expecting.

On this trip, I used a TenkaraUSA 10.5 foot furled tapered line, and verrying lengths of 6x tippet. The furled line was a bit light, blowing off in a light breeze, but with it I was able to make much more delicate presentations. I eventually decided that, for the narrow water I was fishing, a line slightly shorter than the rod's 12 feet gave be the best combination of control and reach. 

The trout on this river were eager to rise to any small dry fly, so I took the opportunity to try out some traditional Japanese reverse-hackle Sakasa Kebari flies. My hope was that if the small to medium sized fish were rising to dries, some larger specimens might be willing to take a wet hackle in the film or below the surface. 

The Sakasa Kebari flies, in a variety of colors, did induce many strikes, but for one reason or another I had a hard time setting the hook and missed every other strike. I would like to say that this is because the trout were taking the fly more gingerly, but it is more likely that I need to shed some of my slack line, dry fly instincts, and keep more tension in the line between between the rod tip and the fly. 

I think I will keep trying Sakasa Kebari flies, if for no other reason than I enjoy a challenge, but the Tenkara rod when paired with a furled line is a perfect dry fly delivery system. The rod presented Large EC Cutter's Caddis and small emerger patterns with ease, and while I tried to keep proper line tension, I could still accurately present and set the hook with a bit of tippet floating on the water.

Truthfully, I often feel like I am figuring out Tenkara techniques by trial-and-error. While casting seems to come very naturally for me, I have to constantly remain vigilant about the hight and angle at which I hold the rod. My instincts were honed with a veritable length line, and so I am used to controlling my line primarily by taking in or giving slack. With the tenkara rod's fixed line, the position of the fly on the water seems to be controlled through arm position and angle of the rod. That is, the angle of the rod controls how much (if any) line is on the water, and to some extent how far the fly is from the point of casting. The hight at which you hold the rod controls how far out the fly can get into the river.

Of course, the same is true for western style fly fishing, but without the third dimension of line length, it becomes vital for tenkara. This may seem quite obvious, but somehow my arm would often fail to respond how I wanted it to, and the fly would wander away from the seams I was trying to fish. 

Playing and landing the fish were quite different as well. On the larger tailwater, I was glad for the extra length of the rod. It gave me the leverage to fight slightly larger fish in the broad fast current. In the small stream, however, I found that the same leverage caused me to lift small trout out of the water and send them flying through the air, where they came off the barbless hooks.

After loosing a couple of fish this way, I found that as soon as I had set the hook, I could collapse the bottom two sections of rod, reducing the length and allowing me to play the fish more gently. 

All-in-all, I am glad I gave Tenkara a second chance on more appropriate water. I enjoyed my first experience, but I was often frustrated by my inability to get the fly out to where I wanted it. On the small stream, it was able to completely cover the water, and I was able to make some casts and fish some currents that would probably have been more difficult with a Western fly rod. That combined with the small size and eminent "Packability" of the tenkara rod and kit, will probably be enough to take a Tenkara rod on most hikes with a possibility of fishing, whether or not fishing is the goal.

--Posted by Eben

Last year, when I first made the hike down to the Little Sur River in the Ventana Wilderness, I wasn't expecting much. The whole area had been burned badly in the 2008 wildfire season, and I was assured by those in the know that the already spotty trout population of the Little Sur was surely done in by the fire, or the resulting ash and mudslides.

My fishing buddy and I decided to check it out anyway. We had caught fish in Salmon creek, a similar river an hour south of the Little Sur, and the idea of small stream fishing close to home was too tempting. Therefore, our first trip down was filled with cautious optimism.

Our optimism paid off, and we found the Little Sur to be chock full of small 3-4" trout eager to rise to any well presented dry fly. Even better there was not a single angler on the river (although that first day there were a dozen or so naked hippies, but that is a story for another day). 

I made the hike down to the Little Sur often last summer, and each time was rewarded for the effort. It seems that something had survived the fire, and a small little population of trout was taking hold.

The river opened up again this last weekend, and once again I found myself full of trepidation. The winter was unseasonably wet, and I was worried that the storms might have filled the river with mud. Furthermore, the camp host at the trailhead had reported sightings of merganser ducks, which he believed were eating the trout.

Once again, the hike down to the river paid off, and we discovered that not only had the trout population survived it had thrived. Not only were trout rising to well presented dry flies, but the average size had risen from 3 inches to 6 or 7 inches, with fish as large as 11.5 inches being brought to hand. 

This story may not seem remarkable, but as a youngish angler, I have little experience with improvement in my fisheries. It seems that everywhere I go in California, I am told about how much better the fishing was "back in the day". I am told that overfishing, poaching, stocking, or dams have ruined once great fisheries, and that I will never experience what my older "brothers of the angle" did. 

It may be the case that the environment in general and river's in particular are not what they were, but it was really nice going back to work this week knowing that there is somewhere where things are getting better.

--Posted by Eben

I recently completed a rod build for my friend Ned. He has been fishing with us on-and-off  for the las year, and it was time for him to get his own rod. He picked himself out a nice 8.5 Foot Orvis Hydros blank, yellow whipping thread, a reverse half-wells grip and Struble up-locking reel seat with a zebra maple spacer. 

He got a chance to take it out for a spin this weekend at the Little Sur trout opener, which I hope to write more about later in the week. I don't love graphite rods, but I have to say that this hydros is a true mid-flex, and loads quite nicely. Ned was able to make the short delicate casts necessary to catch these little trout on a dry-fly.

Recently, I have been finishing my rods with thinned spar varnish, but for this more modern rod,  I thought I would use light build epoxy. Epoxy definitely saves a lot of time drying, especially on a four piece rod, but I think I get a cleaner, smoother result with varnish. One advantage of epoxy was that I was to make transparent ferrule wraps by mixing epoxy with acetone. This saved trying to find a thread color to match the blank. 

I have to say I really enjoyed making a rod for a friend. It let me branch out with style and materials, and gave me an excuse to keep building, even when I don't necessarily need another rod for myself.

--Posted by Eben

Sometimes the fishing doesn't live up to the expectations we bring to it, and sometimes that is just fine. To paraphrase a friend paraphrasing an Alcoholics Anonymous saying, expectations are nothing but premeditated regret. 

Like Tom Chandler over at Trout Underground, I also made a bet this weekend on a small stream, but unlike Tom, my bet didn't pan out. With our regular early season rivers blown out, David and I set our sites on the headwaters of the Carmel river, a stream that neither of us had ever fished, but which was geographically and topographically similar to our beloved Little Sur, a little stream that produces a lot of fun dry fly fishing for small wild trout.

Hiking in to the river involves a leisurely 2.5 mile walk around the San Padres Reservoir (where spin-casters and float tuber's were catching trout that were inaccessible to us), ultimately leading to a series of beautiful pools shaded by redwoods and alders. However, within an hour, it was clear that the crystal clear pools were utterly devoid of fish. 

I started to feel a sense of disappointment creeping up, and then had to struggle with myself to regain a sense of perspective. Perhaps the day was not going to provide me with the electric jolt of catching a trout on a dry fly, but I had a beautiful day hiking with a friend and had discovered a new creek which, once it warms up beyond 50 degrees, might actually provide some lovely fishing.

If the next fishing trip also turns out to be a "hike with a fly rod", I might not be able to hold onto the same cheery outlook, but for the moment, I am very pleased with a lovely day out.

Recent weeks have been short on time for fishing, projects and blogging, sadly resulting in a severe drop-off in the number of blog-posts. Mea Culpa.

Last weekend was the general trout opener here in California, and while I will still have to wait a bit to fish my favorite coastal streams and Sierra rivers, I am looking forward to trying out some new waters in the upcoming days and weeks, and I will make sure to keep the blog updated.

In the meantime, I have gotten a chance to put a few hours into the Eclectic Angler reel kit I got for christmas. These kits, made by fellow Massachusetts-er Michael Hackney, are really nice. He has taken a lot of the shop work out of the equation by rough cutting the brass and aluminum pieces, but left enough work to do so that you can get a true sense of accomplishment from finishing your own reel (or at least that is what I imagine it will feel like when I get around to finishing it).

The first phase of the kit requires sanding and filing all the pieces so that the spool plates can move easily within the reel, and then test-assembling the reel so that you can customize the action and make sure all the parts fit together properly.

The next step in the process will be to take the reel apart and sand and polish it up nicely before final assembly. 

I want to point out that Michael is a really nice guy to work with, my kit was missing a spring washer (more likely I lost it), and he sent me a new one, along with a nice little eclectic angler screwdriver. 

I still have a lot of projects in the que, including the Orvis Hydros build that is nearing completion, so there should be a lot more blog posts in the future.

--Eben

Well, I have been quite busy with work and non-fishing travel, so I have not had much time to fish or work on any of my projects. I was hoping to steal a day from this weekend, but the wall of rain falling outside my window has made that impossible. 

Fortunately the mailman has been very good to me this week, and I have now received the last components I need to build the Orvis Hydros rod for my friend Ned. 

I took the blank up to the Bay area this weekend so that Ned could see it, and pick out a reel-seat insert, grip style and thread colors. He picked our a very nice Zebra insert, a reversed half wells grip and yellow/silver wraps. I have yet to set up a good cork lathe, so the grip is pre-formed by Struble, with a nice inlet to match the Struble reel-seat hardware. 

If the rain keeps up, I might get quite a bit of the work done on this rod over the weekend. At the least, I would like to epoxy the handle section, lay out the guides and wrap the ferrules. 

As always, I'll post updates here as I go.

--Posted by Eben

This saturday I got my first chance to take out my new Fountainhead 360 tenkara rod. Now, I freely admit that the river we chose for this outing was not the most appropriate river for a tenkara rod. While there are some nice streamline runs, most of the river is wide and deep. In the winter, the most productive fishing is done with multiple tiny nymphs fished deep under an indicator. However, since I did not want to wait until the snow melts on the mountains or until the season begins next month on the coastal streams, I decided to take a risk and try the new rod in less than ideal conditions.

As fishing can be hit or miss this time of year, my fishing buddy David came along and fished my 8.5 Foot F.E. Thomas Dirigo bamboo rod as a "control". We are at about the same skill level, and he fishes this river in much the same style I usually wood.  The day was slow, but by the end I had caught one trout (on a Fuji tenkara dry fly), and he had caught six on casts of three wet flies. As far as I am concerned, on fish on a dry is worth 5 sub-surface, so we came out pretty even. On another type of river, I doubt there would be much of a disparity.

More important than the number of fish caught is the experience of fishing with a particular rod, or in a particular style. An on that front Tenkara holds up pretty well.

Ease of hiking/wading

The compact nature of a telescopic rod is truly freeing, especially when bushwhacking through dense brush and blackberry brambles. When I first set out toward the river, I was able to simply stick the rod in my pack , and once it had the fly and line on it, it was easy to wrap the line around my hand or line spool, and walk with the rod collapsed. I didn't have to worry about navigating the tip of a fly rod eight feet in front of me between branches and vines.

Casting

Casting tenkara style is pretty easy. Within about ten minutes I was making accurate casts, and after about an hour I was no longer thinking about casting and was just fishing. While I don't think I got caught in tree branches more often than with other rods, I did get tangled in different branches. In general I had to be more aware of higher branches than usual and less aware of of what was way behind me.

Presentation

The long rod and light, fixed length line allow for amazingly long dead drifts, especially with dry flies. With wet flies and nymphs I found myself more aware of the tip of the fly rod than with western style fly fishing. Instead of controlling the depth of the fly with line slack and weighted flies, I was able to control it by lowering and raising the rod tip.

Playing/Landing a Fish

The particular rod I was using transmitted feeling from the end of the line to my hand as well as my favorite bamboo and fiberglass rods. I was able to feel the trout take my dry fly as soon as it happened and was able to hook up with ease. The only fish I landed was not big, but it was fun to play him on the long rod and line. I was standing next to a large current, but I was able to play him into the slow water with side pressure and quickly bring him to the net. 

All-in-all, I really enjoyed fishing tenkara style. I don't think I would bring it back to the lower Stanislaus again, but the I will definitely be bring it with me to smaller rivers, mountain streams, and larger rivers with a lot of pocket water. I can see taking it with me on day hikes that may or may not give fishing opportunities, and maybe investing in a slightly shorter rod for very small trout in tight spaces.

--Posted by Eben

The last few months I have spent a lot of time watching videos and reading about Tenkara, a traditional form of Japanese fly fishing involving only a long rod, a fixed length line, and a fly. I love reels (in fact I am currently trying my hand a reelsmithing), but I must admit that the idea of a completely simplified rig is quite compelling. So, this last Saturday I bit the bullet and ordered a tenkara rod, some line, and some tenkara flies. The packages have been coming in all week, and yesterday I came come to find that lovely triangle shaped box that always announces the arrival of a fly rod.

We are on a budget here at T&S headquarters, so I decided to start with the Fountainhead Caddis Fly 360, a 12 foot rod that sells for only $50. Based on reviews, I only expected a serviceable rod that I could replace if I decided to stick with Tenkara. Maybe it is the fact that the rod is make of a fiberglass/graphite composite, but I was pleasently surprised out how good the rod felt when I took it lawn casting. The slow action fits my general casting style, and the rod is lightweight so that I feel comfortable casting, even though it is almost twice the length of my favorite western fly rods.

For line I ordered a braided tapered line and a level mono line from TenkaraUSA (the main importer/producer of tenkara rods this side of the Pacific). I liked the feel of braided line, but the rod really woke up with twelve feet of the 3.5 level line.

I also ordered a handful of tenkara flies from a very good tier on eBay. While I will also probably experiment with my usual soft-hackles, emergers and dries,  I liked the look of these traditional fies. 

If all goes well, I should be able to fish the rod this weekend, if so, I will give a full report.

--Posted by Eben

Last week the Carter Center held an auction of various Jimmy Carter memorabilia and ephemera to support the estimable work of the Center promoting world peace and democracy. Among the offerings was a "Fly Fishing Fantasy" weekend in the North Georgia mountains, which eventually sold for 70 thousand dollars. While I am sure that North Georgia has some lovely fishing opportunities, what pushed price into the high five figures was the face-time with the former POTUS and First Lady. 

While the former chief executive is known for his fly fishing chops (the man ties his own flies and practices catch and release), the 86 year old's participation in the trip will be limited to lunch and cocktails in the evening. 

--Posted by Eben

While this past weekend did not afford an opportunity to fish, there were a few free hours to devote to some of my lingering projects. So, I began to work on my bamboo rod rebuild in earnest. This is my first attempt at doing anything with bamboo, but it seems that the basic steps are the same as they would be for rebuilding any rod. 

Step 1: Documentation

Before doing anything to the rod, I took photographs of each piece and recorded all of the pertinent measurements, including number of guides, guide spacing, wrap color and style, and handle configuration.

The most notable thing about this particular rod, is that it was originally intended to be usable as either a fly or spinning rod. In the fly rod configuration, it is an 8 foot three piece rod with two tips. However, there is a third tip that fits into the but section to make a shorter spinning rod. In the spinning configuration, the handle and reel seat can be completely detached and reversed to accommodate a spinning reel.

Step 2: Research

There are few extant markings on the cane, but I suspected that it might be a Montague or other production rod. But, after consulting with some knowledgeable folks, I determined that, due to it's hardware, it was probably a post-WWII Japanese rod. Not collectable, but highly fishable.

Step 3: Disassembly
Using care not to mar the cane, I used a single-edged razor blade to remove the guides and as much of the thread wraps as possible. The wraps on the guides and ferrules came off without much trouble, but the long intermediate wraps were worn in many places, and proved much more difficult. Ultimately, I left about half of them on, hoping that they would be removed in the next step.

As the reel seat and grip are in good condition, and as they can be removed completely as a unit, I simply set them aside for the time being.

I would have opted to keep the original ferrules on the rod, but they seem to be made of a soft chrome-plated metal and at least one of them was badly bent, which at first led me to believe (mistakenly) that the cane had taken on a significant "set". I removed the ferrules by heating them slowly over a candle, taking care not to scorch the cane. After several minutes and a few tugs with pliers, they each came free without marring the cane.

Step 4: Stripping

After some research, I found that the "natural" citrus based Citristrip that I use on fiberglass rods could be used to strip the varnish off of cane without damaging the glue that binds each individual strip of bamboo together into a tapered blank. Over the course of a day I submitted to cane to four treatments, which succeeded in removing all of the remaining thread, but only about half of the varnish.

I am going to experiment with some light sanding and maybe more lengthy treatments to try to get as much varnish off as possible without harming the blank. Once I have a completely clean blank, it will be time to start building the blank back up to a fishable rod.

--Posted by Eben