beadleech - the last few times I've been out I've been using various short cane sticks, with 5wt since the Lil Lehi has been running high. This morning I decided to spend a couple hours at a local freestoner to see how the trouts are holding up. This is a stream that is not known for its Tricos, and for its water temps any Trico hatch, if any, would have been done by last month.

This stream was running extremely low, when I scoped it out on USGS, so I thought I would look into my winerack with the 1wts. I dug out the Elkhorn and paired it with an Orvis Spring Creek DT1F. The leader had leftover 8X on it.

I found the usual trouts lurking in holding spots in my favorite pool, so I tossed them a variety of midges, which they gave me the courtesy of inspecting. Then I saw a Trico (one) fly by, so I put on 9X Puglisi and a #24 CDC Trico male. 1st cast was a leaping brown. I couldn't get the fly to float properly after, so I switched to another with a slightly different wing, but still CDC. That got the 2nd brown.

Since my main purpose was to evaluate the Elkhorn with this line (never paired before), I caught a couple of sunnies and fed them to a pilot snake.

The Elkhorn is faster than the Orvis 7'6"1wt Superfine. It handled the strikes very competently and let me land the trouts with dispatch. For graphite, the feel was pretty good, though I think the Sage SPL 8'1" might have a bit more finesse. It rolls pretty well (for a 1wt) and didn't mind chucking a #10 foam beetle - I got a number of hits, but though I tagged several trouts, I didn't hold on to any. I don't blame the rod for this - the trouts were being paranoid, even with naturals like cicadas. Plus the water was very clear and it was bright and sunny.

Next step is to try the same size Cabela's under the same conditions.

tl
les