Glass With Ass, The Orvis Superfine Glass Rod
WARNING: FIBERGLASS IS HIGHLY ADDICTIVE.
I love the feel of fiberglass rods for trout fishing. It’s as if all of my stress is just absorbed by the material. I can not be tense or angry or anxious with a glass rod in my hand. It’s just a joy. The pace and the feel of the rod just puts me in a good mood. Like the first day of summer.
The problem is, a lot of fiberglass rods don’t come out of the tube until summer arrives. Though they may be pure bliss with a dry fly, they can leave you a little under-gunned when old man winter demands a little weight. Lead and fiberglass generally don’t mix.
Well, this winter has been an exception. I’ve spent most of the colder months fishing my new Orvis 7’6″ 4 weight, Superfine Glass. This little gem has all the feel and delicacy of presentation that I expect in a great fiberglass rod, and something I didn’t. Enough ass to throw a tandem nymph rig with split shot and a Thingamabobber.
That means the Superfine Glass is a year-round rod. That’s a huge plus for me. I fish a lot of small streams in the colder months and a 7 1/2′ 4wt is perfect. Now I get the fun of fishing fiberglass on those days too.
When the bugs do come out the Superfine can not be matched for delicate dry fly presentation. It drops a fly as soft as a whisper and has surprising range. The slow pace of the cast makes reach casting a dream and the deep bend of the rod means great roll casting. It’s all around a veritable, precision fly fishing machine.
The Superfine glass is available in
Read More »Sunday Classic / The V Grip
MORE ON LINE SPEED FROM BRUCE CHARD.
Hopefully you’ve gotten comfortable with adding the wrist snap to your cast. Today Bruce is going to get into some serious advanced technique. Your going to see him use the “V Grip”. This is going to feel seriously odd at first. In fact I think this is harder to get the hang of if you have been casting for a long time. Don’t get discouraged, the results are amazing. Don’t expect to get it over night but with a lot of practice you can do this smoothly and effectively and you’ll be glad you spent all that time out casting on the lawn. Bruce will be back on Friday with the final video in the series.
Read More »Saturday Shoutout / Midcurrent Talks Streamers With Kelly Galloup
THE NAME KELLY GALLOUP HAS BECOME SYNONYMOUS WITH STREAMER FISHING.
Kelly’s book “Modern Streamers for Trophy Trout” shaped the tactics of a generation of fly fishers. It’s popularity established Kelly as the ‘go to’ expert on the subject of streamer fishing. This week Midcurrent talks to the streamer man about his theories on streamer design and tactics for fishing them. Whether you’re a dyed in the wool streamer junkie or just curious, it’s worth your time.
TALKING STREAMERS WITH KELLY GALLOUP
Read More »The Airflo Saltwater Cold Striper Line Is Cooler Than Cool
SALTWATER FLY FISHING IS NOT ALL FUN IN THE SUN.
A couple of my recent trips have been pretty cold and miserable. One thing that can make a cold saltwater trip especially miserable is having the wrong fly line. Most saltwater fly lines are tropical lines made to perform in the heat of the tropical summer. Cold weather puts very different demands on your fly line and one of those tropical lines that performs great in the heat can be a recipe for frustration when the mercury dips.
A lot of anglers don’t understand the difference and will turn up on chilly days with a tropical line. I’ve done it myself. When that tropical line comes off the reel it coils up in a bird’s nest on the deck and stays that way for the rest of the day. The result is a bunch of time spent untying knots and missing fish. It’s a bad feeling.
A tropical line just isn’t going to behave until the temperature is above eighty degrees Fahrenheit. Even winter fishing in the tropics can be sketchy. The air can be well over eighty degrees and the water still be below seventy. Your line comes out of the water too cold to preform as it should.
No one deals with this more than striper fishermen in the northeast. Those guys deal with brutal conditions. It was for them that Airflo designed their Saltwater Cold Striper Line. Designed with absolutely no memory and a super low-stretch core, this line performers when Mother Nature does her worst. Although it was designed for chasing stripers, I find I’m using this line for everything from blue water to redfish.
Airflo-Ridge-Striper-lineThe Airflo Saltwater Cold line is
Read More »And The Winners Are…
THE RESULTS ARE IN FOR THE 2014 GINK AND GASOLINE FLY FISHING PHOTOGRAPHY CONTEST.
Clearly, our readers stayed busy with both fly rods and cameras in 2013. We had so many amazing entries this year. I am so glad that I did not have the difficult job of judging all of this great work. You guys rock!
AND THE WINNERS ARE!
1st place goes to Reuben Browning
For this amazing photo of a free swimming rainbow trout. Great work Reuben! Enjoy that new Echo 590-4 fly rod, you’ve earned it!
An Amazing Photo by Reuben Browning
An Amazing Photo by Reuben Browning
Second place goes to Joel Dickey
For this beautiful underwater view of the silver king. Joel gets the awesome Fishpond boat bag.
Photo Joel Dickey
Photo Joel Dickey
Third place goes to Stu Hastie
For the Double Rainbow. Stu finished first last year and that MFC reel was his prize. Nice work Stu! You’ll be casting like a pro with your new RIO Perception fly line!
Photo Stu Hastie
Photo Stu Hastie
I’d like to thank Echo, Fishpond and RIO for their generous support of the G&G 2014 Fly Fishing Photography contest. Without your help it could not happen.
Most of all, I’d like to thank everyone who submitted photos! You guys continue to blow me away with your talent and passion for fly fishing. Keep up the great work and we’ll see what you’ve been up to in 2015!
Read More »Sunday’s Classic / Wood is Good
Anytime I come across any sort of wood on the water while trout fishing, whether it’s a log jam, isolated root ball, or just a low overhanging tree, I always take the time to fish around it. Wood offers trout cover and safety which are two very important elements that trout search out when they’re deciding where to position themselves in a river or stream. Wood also in many cases offers current breaks, eddies, and soft seams, all of which allow trout to feed more easily, while adding a extra degree or two of safety from the cover it provides. Furthermore, there’s an incredible amount of food that hangs out amongst wood, that very often falls off of and into the water, and next, ends up in the stomachs of trout. All of the above make wood prime habitat and magnets for trout.
Read More »Saturday Shoutout / MichiganFly “Experience”
This week we bring you some very wise words from Michiganfly.com on what draws fly fishermen to the sport and the magnificent memories and meaning that fly fishing brings to each of our lives. I finish every post I write on Gink & Gasoline with the words “Keep it Reel” and the article “Experience” that was recently published on MichiganFly, puts true meaning behind those words.
Do yourself a favor and take a couple minutes to read this wonderfully written fly fishing piece that inspired and moved me to the core. Have a wonderful weekend everyone and thank you for visiting Gink & Gasoline.
Read More »The Reward of Finding and Catching Fish All on Your Own
Being a guide, it’s safe to say that I’m a little biased when it comes to how valuable I feel having a guide on hand is for the average fly angler. Most of us don’t have the time with our busy work schedules to spend a few days figuring out the current fishing conditions, the lay of the land, and what the hot fly patterns are going to be on the water when we finally manage to wet a fly line. Therefore, hiring a guide that’s a local expert in the area that you’re going to be fly fishing is almost certain to not only put the odds in your favor for maximizing your fly fishing success, but generally it also will gurantee that you’ll come home a much more comepentent fly angler. That said, I’ll never look down on fly fisherman that refuse to hire professional guides, as long as they respect what professional guides bring to the table for anglers. I’ll be the first to admit that there’s something really special and rewarding when you find success all on your own, even if the decision to not use a guide means that you may not catch nearly as many fish during your trip. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that there’s a time and place for guides to be hired, and each angler has the freedom and right to make that call.
When Louis, Scott and I headed down to Louisiana for some redfishing this past month, we planned from the very get go, that it would be a total DIY redfishing trip. Scott had the skiff covered, while Louis and I brought all the fly fishing gear we were going to need for the trip (correction, Louis brought 95% of the gear, I just tagged along). I guess you could say, going in, we were all confident we’d catch some redfish, but we didn’t know if that meant we’d catch 1 or 50. We knew there were going to be plenty of challenges that we’d have to overcome if we were going to reach our goal of us all catching redfish on the fly. One positive we had going for us, was that we wouldn’t be heading into the Delacroix, LA waters completely blind. Louis had previously gathered some intel on the fishing grounds during a recent photography shoot down in the bayou. That said, we’d still have a lot of figuring out to do once we hit the water, since Louis hadn’t actually wet a fly line during his time in Louisiana. We all agreed even if we figured it all out during the trip, we’d likely still catch far fewer redfish than if we had all ponied up, and hired a local guide for the fishing trip.
Read More »Way Cool Nautilus Reels
WHEN THINGS GET HOT, IT’S IMPORTANT TO KEEP REEL COOL.
Big fish, and I mean big fish, require a reel with serious drag. As much as I enjoy landing a steelhead with a vintage Hardy you will not find me fishing one during the Palolo Worm Hatch. For big game species like tarpon I want a modern carbon fiber drag system with a bad attitude. Like my friend Scottie says, “Set your drag to medieval, then crank it down to FULL EVIL!”
The thing about serious drag systems is that they generate serious heat. It makes sense. Drag is a product of friction as is heat. If all of that heat isn’t managed, it can cause big trouble. In addition to making parts of the reel too hot to touch, heat can cause serious performance issues. As reel components heat up they expand. Quality reels are machined to very exacting tolerances and if the wrong parts get too hot, drag can increase dramatically. Reels can even lock up or worse fly apart.
Think about the dynamics of a stacked drag system. Multiple friction plates all expanding with heat. Let’s say there are seven plates. The expansion problem is multiplied by a factor of seven. As heat causes drag to increase, the increased drag creates (you guessed it), more heat. More heat means more expansion and… you can see where this is headed.
I talked about this with Kristen Mustad from Nautilus Reels. Kristen explained how Nautilus reels use a carefully designed combination of heat insulators and conductors to direct the heat from the drag system where it will do no harm. The NV series reels, for example, direct the heat from the drag into the spool, which is designed to act as a heat sync. The intricate machining maximizes surface area and releases heat into the air as well as the water carried by the line.
It’s an ingenious design. An inspired idea and remarkable execution, but is it all just talk or does it really work?
Read More »Sunday Classic / Snap Your Wrist For Line Speed
THE QUEST FOR LINE SPEED CONTINUES!
Today Bruce is going to get a little closer to that fly rod and talk about the roll your wrist plays in fly casting. Watch closely. Bruce has great mussel memory from thousands of hours of casting. Watch the subtlety of his wrist movement. The snap and push that happens. Don’t forget that, as in all fly casting, this requires a smooth application of power to be successful. This will take some practice to master and in the next two videos Bruce will build on this technique so get out in the yard and give it a try.
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