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Thanks folks.
Very tempting to fish it someplace familiar where I know that I will catch fish with it. But more of a challenge to christen it on brand new water - someplace I haven't fished before - which will most likely be the Big Wood River in the forest country north of Ketchum or the Salmon River in the Sawtooth Valley around Stanley sometime in the next couple days.
Will post my thoughts about the action and how it "feels" later in the week, and maybe some pics of a fish or two ??
Just wiggling it, it seems to be on the fast side of medium action. That is how the blank was described in a couple things I read about it. It's a 2/3 according to Sevier. I plan to fish it with a DT3, which should slow it down a bit ?? If nothing else, it will be another interesting learning experience for me.
John
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that is a very beautiful blank, in the photo it looks like a Fisher (root beer colored blank) that I built up many years back as my float tube trout rod, still fish with it as my favorite rod. In the sun you can see some tiger stripes deep in the beautiful gloss of the rod. Dang, that sure does bost my interest back up into getting back into rod building and building a few new rods up this fall :)
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John,
OK, so I was wrong. I should NOT have asked for pictures of that rod.
Doggone it! I already have 3 blanks, for Cary, down on my work table. I don't NEED any more. OK, so it was my fault for looking. It was also my fault for going to their web page. Somehow I have to figure out a way to blame you for posting. I couldn't just ignore your post, could I?
Oh, well, a pretty little 6 footer and a pretty little bit bigger 7'6" will look nice in my quiver!!! :rolleyes::p
Betty
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Betty, I posted before about these blanks..how did you ignore that, only to succumb now?
These are really nice blanks w/a great action and I'm using them as my standard builds.
Now all you need is more arms........lol
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Sorry!! The pressure just got to me ... and he was the closest to blame!!!:p
Plus, if I remember right ... you had the decency to NOT post pictures. Yes, John! I asked, you posted!! And I weakened!
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Fished some new water on the North Fork of the Big Lost yesterday afternoon, upstream of any water I had fished on that fork before, to christen my new rod.
Since Betty thinks I am responsible for her wanting to run out and buy some new blanks, I will dedicate the following pictures to her.
This picture shows a very small pool on the North Fork, which is actually a little bigger stream than I had in mind for this rod, but was handy for the christening.
http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/j...o/P8100009.jpg
Fishing with a DT3F line and a homemade furled leader with about 3' of 4X tippet to a Harrop's Henry's Fork Caddis, for about two hours, I landed seven cutthroat and three rainbows, turned several more and just missed hooking the biggest cutthroat I've seen in this fork of the river. This one came out of the little pool shown in the picture above.
http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/j...007_edited.jpg
I've not cast a rod this short before, so that took some getting used to. After only a couple hours with it, I'm not sure I have a really good feel for it, and am hard put to describe it. Also, I don't "get" some of the language others use to describe rod action and feel, so I can't use language that others might use or prefer in talking about the rod. Finally, there was a pretty good breeze on and off, and that definitely effected what was happening with a very supple furled leader on a 3 wt line.
Having said that - I had an Abel TR1 reel on it with full backing and a Rio Selective Trout DT3F line. Too heavy a combination for this rod. The balance point in hand was just barely in front of the reel. That did effect how casting the rod felt.
It loaded well at short distance, as evidenced by the picture above. Casting into the shadows above the pool only required ten feet or so of line. On the other hand, there were places where I was casting up to thirty feet of line and the rod handled that well with good accuracy. So, overall, I was pretty pleased with the range of the rod. ( Thirty feet is actually more than I would ever expect to cast on the waters for which I built the rod. )
I spent a fair amount of time casting to specific targets to get a feel for the accuracy. The rod consistently does its part in hitting the target. I also did a variety of casts that I do with my longer rods - roll casts, flip and flick casts, and a couple odd ones for special situations. No let down at all, which considering it is a 6' rod, kind of surprised me.
Where the rod really shined, was picking up the fly after a drift and firing it back quickly upstream for another drift over the same water with no false casting and shooting a bit of line. This was particularly true in the shorter ranges, say fifteen to twenty feet. I did this kind of cast repeatedly on a couple occasions just because of my initial surprise at how well the rod worked in that situation. The accuracy on these short "pick up and deliver" casts was very good, even when the breeze would come up in the middle of the cast.
That's about it for my first time out. Overall, I was pretty pleased with how the rod performed. I think it will shine on the really small creeks I had in mind when I started the build.
Hopefully, Smernsky will get back to this thread and comment one way or the other how my description compares to his experience with this blank.
John
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<Fortunately I have Seviers on my speed dial!!>
John, thank you! That's just what I "needed"!! Most of the streams I fish are of the smaller variety, and the actions of these rods look to fit the bill. Beautiful rod, beautiful area, beautiful fish!