Airflo Speydicator Fly Line...Gods gift to nymphing

My last major fly rod purchase was earlier this year when i finally bit the bullet and got on the switch rod bandwagon. And i must say that i am impressed with the abilities of my Buelah 6/7. The matching elixar scandi head makes fishing a classic wet fly or skater a joy. But to me and obviously many others the obvious use of the "switch" rod is nymphing, but switch rods currently are having the same problems that spey rods had a decade or more ago, lots of good rods, and really no lines.......Actually with the exception of Beulah and a couple of high end small custom fly rod shops like the amazing Bob Meiser there are no specific swith lines, people right now are playing with the grain windows plugging in either smaller spey lines or big single hand lines, both of which can work, but nymphing is a tricky business, despite what alot of inexperienced fly fishermen think getting the fly out there is not the hard part, that is the easy part, controlling the fly or flies and line once you get it out there is the tricky part.
Thankfully enter Airflo from stage right. They put out a new line specifically designed for nymphing with switch or spey rods, Aptly named the Speydicator. Obviously being a devil worshipping bottom bouncer i had to have 0ne and picked one up this last week. I took it out to the metolius yesterday for a little on the water testing....

I picked up the 7wt Speydicator to match up to my 6/7 spey, the 7wt line is over the grain window of my switch but i decided to go with it anyways, never know till you try. I man alive was i not dissapointed. The construction of this fly line to me is very impressive. You can single hand cast it or spey cast it or anywhere in between. I basically feels like your casting a skagit head, the tip lifts and launches two heavy nymphs on a 12ft leader with a large thingamabobber with ease, but the beauty when casting is if room permits the head is plenty long enough to really open up some spey casts, get a nice big d loop behind you and boom casts all the way across the river.....of course alot of lines can do that......its the fishing ability that makes this line amazing. the head is long enough that it mends with ease, but after the head is this long"mending" zone before the running line. This allows you to mend and control your line from a long distance and make drifts that are so far out and so long its basically cheating.....and i love it.

Bushes at your back, no problem, give it a little perry poke action and bam the nymphs are in the middle of the river, and with this line you make a incredible 50ft drift.....

If you fish heavy nymphs alot for trout or steelhead then i HIGHLY recommend a switch rod and matching speydicator line....it works so well it shouldn't be legal.

Metolius River July 3rd.....

The wife and I decided to meet up with a good friend of mine Justin and his girlfriend who are camping for the weekend on the Metolius for a few hrs. This time of year the metolius river area is just beautiful, the late rains and lack of a hot summer thus far has kept everything green. Of course being the 4th of July weekend the river is slam packed full of people. However, some knowledge of off the beaten path fishing area's make it relatively easy to find open fishing spots.

We hit a well known local, and unkown touristy fishing hole aptly named the Aquarium Hole. Known for its tough to hook bull trout that sit in the tailout of this awesome piece of water. There really are few sights that are better then standing above this run and staring down into 10ft of crystal clear water, staring at over a dozen bull trout ranging from 14 inches up to 8lbs. We tossed streamers at these meat eating beasts, and had some exciting chases and grabs but no solid hookups. We moved to the head of the run where some rainbows reside where my friend Justin hooked a great Metolius Redside....

Shortly after that The wife and i had to head out to other engagements, but for me today was just the start of a fishing blitz weekend. I am heading to the valley tomorrow to fish for steelhead on one of the valley rivers for the first time before returning to meet up with justin on Monday for a full day of chasing trout on the metolius....it should be a great weekend.

First Day on the Cascades for 2010

I decided to blow the dust off of the old tired pontoon boat last sunday and head for one of my all time favorite fly fishing destinations. Little Lava Lake. LL is a often overlooked smaller lake on the cascade lakes hwy. I have often times on this lake, especially around this time of year had some of my best ever trout fishing days here.
Upon arrival the weather was pretty nice, partly to mostly cloudy skies probably in the high 40's low 50's. There was also not another soul to be seen on the lake. Perfect. I launched the toon and headed for my favorite area of the lake, fully expecting to light it up fish count wise......2hrs later and not one strike my confidence is taking a nose dive and i'm literally scratching my head trying to figure out what is going wrong here.....The only conclusion is that the water temps aren't quite warm enough yet for the trout to be in the shallower water hammering chironomids/midges like they usually are this time of year.
A switch of tactics had me moving to a deeper,rockier area of the lake looking for some brookies that will surely be biting....maybe.......
A storm rolls in and all of a sudden its snowing sideways, temps dropped 15 degrees and the wind is rolling....crap....well i slowly start making my way towards the boat ramp working a new bugger type pattern, a winter invention of mine right on the bottom.....then finally, FINALLY, i feel a tug....i set the hook and FISH ON. It didn't feel like much of a fish, small brookie was my guess...that is until i got it in close, then i saw it. And it saw me and took off like a locomotive.....holy crap......make that BIG brookie.....A couple minutes later i had in my hands probably the biggest brookie i've caught in 4 yrs....i quick measurement against the writing on the fly rod later revealed a legitimate 17" fat brook trout. A rare sized brook trout for this area....

A Good Day

Super Bowl Sunday on the Metolius

My good friend Mark and I decided to go hit the Metolius river yesterday while everyone else was getting ready for the big football game. Until at least the Middle of March you can figure on alot of Talk about the Metolius river. It is without a doubt my favorite winter fishery.
Yesterday was a picture perfect metolius winter day. Mostly cloudy, no wind, and above freezing. Its really about all you can ask for in the first part of february.
The morning basically started as it always does on a winter metolius fishing trip for Mark and I. Breakfast at the Gallery in Sisters. This is really an important part of any winte metolius fishing trip. When it comes to fishing the metolius Karma plays a big part and you don't want to mess with the fishing gods. After breakfast it was off to the river.....We decided to fish a favorite stretch of river for bull trout to start the morning off. Streamer fishing is the name of the game for us. There is no doubt that you can hookup more Bulls with nymphs most of the time. But its not all about the numbers...For me its all about standing in that crystal clear water stripping a streamer through the current and watching the bull trout give chase and grab the fly. Few things are as fun to watch.
I had a couple chases and one grab but no hookups, Mark managed to stick a smaller Bull and all was well....We decided to move farther upstream to a popular stretch of water to see if the Blue Winged Olive hatch was going to show up and if the trout were going to look up. We lucked out in both regards as around noon the hatch started and the fish started rising. Armed with some Parachute BWO patterns of my own makings we both hooked plenty of trout. Both rainbow and Browns. None were very big, the biggest probably right at 12" but we weren't expecting anything to large where we were and after throwing large streamers for large Bulls in the morning finishing out the afternoon with presenting dries to rising trout with a 3wt was nice.
We finished up mid afternoon as the hatch petered out. Home just in time to turn the game on. Man its a rough life being a fly fishing bum :)

First Trip Winter Steelheading

I have done alot of fishing in my years, in alot of different places chasing alot of different fish....But there are two things that i had not done before that i did this weekend...And the funny thing is that i only had to drive about 2.5hrs to do it......

#1 Believe it or not I have never casted a fly line west of the cascades. Its crazy, beautiful water such as the santiams,the mckenzie,the coastal rivers etc....never done it.

#2 I have never winter steelheaded before....Steelheading is a relatively new pursuit for me. And i must admit that its quickly becoming an addiction. Its a long wait till the eastside summer steelhead start arriving so i accepted an invitation from a few friends to fish some coastal streams for these mythical creatures.....

I will start by saying that i am not going to say where i was fishing...names will not be mentioned less extreme violence be brought upon me by my hosts....What i will say is that we fished two bodies of water, one a well known popular coastal steelhead river. The other a lessor known smaller stream.....

Tactics for the weekend was nymphing....specifically nymphing egg patterns. Lets all be honest here. This is not the most exciting way to catch a steelhead. However it is extremely effective and when you are new to the game you roll with what works. Especially when the guys your fishing with catch more winters a year then should be legal.

Frankly it was a tough weekend of catching fish. Flows and clarity are a big part of winter steelheading. And although not perfect both were in our favor this weekend. The fishing enviroment is different also....The rivers/streams are loaded with great steelhead water. They are also loaded with lots of big rocks,log jams, branches and all kinds of fly gobbling structure to get hung up....And this doesn't count the ever present overhanging trees....Needless to say i caught alot of rocks, and tons of branches and no steelhead.....

The weekend was not a total skunking though as 3 steelhead were landed for the weekend, not exactly a hot weekend but not a total bust either....I will say that i had a great weekend of fishing and a great weekend of visiting friends and will be back to the valley at least once before the season wanes and central oregon stillwater fishing starts in earnest in march....

Metolius River Fishing Report

While testing my new beulah switch rod(see last blog for full review) i actually did spend a little time fishing today.

The weather was typical metolius january weather....snowing...hard...although above freezing temps so that was nice. Another nice thing about the metolius in winter. I never saw another fisherman until i was leaving. Gotta love that. I didn't fish long but it was productive. With the switch rod i was able to reach and fish water that i had never fished before and it paid off in spades. 1 nice 20ish inch bull trout and a pair of 14-16" rainbows to hand. The bull trout came on a new fly i just designed this last week. The rainbows both on a size 16 pheasant tail under a stonefly nymph.
I will get some pictures of some of the flies that i have been working on as soon as my camera returns from its trip with the wife over the weekend....

Tight Lines....

Beulah 10'6" 6/7 Switch Rod Review

Yesterday i added another weapon to my fish catching arsenal. And to me this one rod is one of the few true all round rods on the market today....


I was looking for a rod or rods to accomplish a couple of objectives....First, I wanted a floating line wet fly/skater steelhead rod. I currently own a 13'3" Redington RS4 spey rod. It is a very nice casting rod with either Skagit line and tips or longer floating lines like a Windcutter or GrandSpey. However, on rivers like the deschutes there is often times not alot of room the bigger D loops required for mid to long belly spey lines. Hence why the Skagit is so popular. But as i'm sure alot of you that spey fish have noticed. Delivering a small,light fly on a floating line,although doable is not the strength of a Skagit type line.
Second, I wanted a rod to use on steelhead rivers such as the rogue where alot of our fishing is done both from the bank and boat using a heavy double nymph rig and large indicator. Traditionally i have used a 9'6" 7wt single hand rod for this and it works fine out of the boat, but is limited from the bank due to the weight of the flies and lack of longer distance mending abilities...basically its too much work.
Third, i wanted a rod to replace the same 7wt single hander for large streamer,sinktip/sinking line large trout/bull trout fishing, both in rivers and more importantly in lakes. I'm talking about large brown trout and Bull Trout in particular.

I have done alot of research and decided that i was going to look into a spey. And for my needs it really became a easy choice. One of the big problems with switch rods right now is trying to find the right lines to do the intended job. A famous steelheader once said"there is no bad spey rod, only bad line choices for the spey rod". This seems to be especially true for switch rods.
With the beulah finding a good spey casting line for floating line steelhead work is about as easy as it gets....Simply pickup your rod and grab Beulah's Elixir scandi head specifically designed for the switch and go fishing....After some testing today i will say that it seemingly is a perfect match also. Spey casting this line/rod combo is a dream. The lines are designed to be used with polyleaders and after experimenting with multiple ones i found that for my casting style a 10ft floating polyleader with about 7ft of tippett off the end was the perfect length. Just enough length to "stick" to the water a little bit to help with your anchor, but not too much that it becomes a burden to get unstuck off the water on your forward cast. After a few minutes it felt great as 70+ft casts were almost effortless, very accurate and laid down on the water very quietly, almost like you were casting a 5wt single hander to rising trout.....awesome....
The big suprise to me and the reason why i bought this particular rod was when i switched to a shooting head sinktip line that i frequently use on the lakes and on the Metolius for big streamer fishing....The comparitively short rod length and lighter weight made this rod effortless to cast single handed. And cast a LONG ways. It was as simply as one back cast, a little single haul on the forward cast and the line and fly zipped across the water like a arrow....ALL the line. 90ft casts were as easy as a 60ft cast with a 6wt. I was giggling as i thought about using this on Lake Billy Chinook in another month for Trophy Bull Trout.
The third component was the heavy double nymph rig. This was one where i wasn't expecting alot yet. The Elixir line is not designed for this so i knew ahead of time that i was going to have to experiement with different lines to the one for nymphing. I was suprised though that the elixir actually casted it pretty well. The timing for spey type casts had to be a little faster then normal because the line isn't designed to pickup heavy flies out of the water. The head is also a little short for longer distance mending and line control. But it casted it pretty well. I think that once the right line is found it will be cake.....

In closing i will say this. This rod will not be for everyone, Although they due have a skagit type line called a Tonic Line for throwing sinktips and bigger flies in my mind this rod is not the tool for that. This rod is probably not the tool for 120ft floating line steelhead applications either. However, if your like me and want a rod that when properly lined can floating line steelhead fish at reasonable,realistic distances.....When properly lined comfortably fish a heavy double nymph rig and be a stillwater streamer superstar.......Then this rod is worth checking out.
Never mind the fact that it retails for less then $400 and the fit and finish is comparable or better then most $600.....