New Rods And Reels From Redington for 2016
Bold new designs from Redington this year.
Paul Richardson, the new industrial designer for Redington, is making his mark with some bold and innovative design strokes on the new rods and reels. The new offerings are sleek and down to business.
The new Chromer two hand rods replace the prospector line. I’ve not cast them but the action feels very nice and there are some sweet features like rubber ends on the cork grips that make handling mono running lines easier. The Chromer is available in switch and spey.
The new Hydrogen single hand rods are super light weight with a crisp action. The black blank is even visible at the reel seat. No spacer material to add weight. There’s a full line of standard lengths plus some 10 & 11 foot nymphing rods.
The Behemoth is a powerful big game reel with 30 pounds of drag and a bold new look. The Zero series reel is super light weight with a great click drag for old-school sound. As always each of these products is at a very competitive price point, offering serious hardware for the budget minded angler.
WATCH THIS VIDEO TO GET A LOOK AT THE REDINGTON RODS AND REELS.
Read More »Why All Fly Anglers Should Be Watching Their Back Cast
By Kent Klewein
No fly angler should ever feel ashamed to watch his/her back cast when trout fishing.
In fact, if you make a habit of consistently watching your back cast, you’ll become a much better fly caster overtime and catch a good deal more fish when you’re on the water. Just because Brad Pitt in the movie, A River Runs Through It, didn’t watch his back cast in most of the fly fishing scenes throughout the film, doesn’t mean fly anglers should follow his lead. The best fly casters in the world watch their back cast when presentations call for it. They might not do it all of the time, but they sure as heck don’t think twice about doing so, when a specific presentation calls for it.
The reason I’m taking the time to talk about this today is because most of my clients struggle with the idea of watching their back cast. From my point of view, they shy away from doing so, because they feel like they’re raising up a red flag that signals, “Hey everyone, I’m a rookie.” But that notion is completely untrue. In reality, if a more advanced fly caster walks up on you and you’re casting poorly because you’re not watching your back cast, he or she is probably going to be thinking, “That poor angler, all he/she needs to do is make an effort to watch his/her backcast and most of those casting flaws would disappear.” If you’ve hit a plateau with your fly casting skills, more times than not, the best thing you can do to take your skills to the next level is start paying more attention to watching your back cast. Put it to the test next time you’re on the water especially if you’re a newcomer or intermediate fly angler. And don’t think it only applies to trout fishing in freshwater, it can be just as important, sometimes even more important, when fly fishing in the salt.
4 REASONS WHY WATCHING YOUR BACK CAST CAN IMPROVE YOUR FLY CASTING AND FISHING
Read More »Shark Smart, Staying Off Of The Food Chain
Here’s a cautionary tail and some tips that might come in handy one day.
I’ve spent a lot of time around sharks. Little babies and fish bigger than a flats boat. Generally speaking, I’m not afraid of them but I know when to cut them a wide berth. I’ve had a few interesting encounters but never a really close call, until recently. I know, that is I’ve been told, how to handle a really aggressive shark but it’s a long walk from knowing to doing.
I fish for these toothy, ill tempered fish from time to time and I’m glad I do. The better part of catching a shark is reading its body language. That is knowing by observation which fish are likely to eat and under what circumstances. That is also the most important skill in avoiding a sticky situation. If you know what a shark is thinking, you know how to approach him. That said, sharks are stupid animals which are capable of any kind of random behavior. Caution is always the best approach.
When you are wading in saltwater, sharks are unavoidable.
They have very poor eyesight and hunt by smell. They can smell you in the water from a long way off and they will come to see if you are interesting. Once they get close enough to see you, they generally want no part of you and bolt out in a hurry. Being blind as bats however, they get pretty close before that happens and that unnerves a lot of anglers. If you’re not use to it, your reaction may not be the best.
In a shark’s mind, food is anything that runs away. If a shark swims up to you and you try to get away from it, you’re sending a signal that you are worth further investigation. That investigation may or may not involve teeth but it’s an interaction you don’t want to have. It’s best to draw a line early. Standing your ground is often enough, but once in a while some aggressive behavior is necessarily. A push pole to the head, a loud splash like jumping up and planting both feet hard and, worst case scenario, a stomp on the head.
The best case is to not get into a bad situation to start with. If you see a shark behaving badly, swimming quickly and searching side to side, cruising around with its dorsal fin out of the water, being aggressive with fish or other sharks, it’s best to leave him to it. Stay in the boat, on the shore, or if it’s too late for any of that, at least don’t exasperate the issue by hooking a fish. That will keep you out of trouble most of the time.
THAT SAID, HERE’S HOW I RECENTLY FOUND MYSELF IN A TIGHT SPOT WITH A BIG SHARK.
I was wading in knee- to thigh-deep water, approaching a school of bonefish
Read More »Sunday Classic / Getting a Grip on Spey Casting
I love casting mono running line on my Spey rods. At present, I’m using Rio Slick Shooter. It lives up to the name. I saw a big improvement in my distance when I made the switch. It casts like a dream and fishes well but the down side of any mono running line is that it gets slick and hard to hold when you’re casting. There’s nothing more disappointing than losing your handle on a cast. That’s when the running line slips from between your fingers and the cork just as you make your forward casting stroke. The rod unloads and your cast piles up in a useless heap. Fortunately my buddy Andrew Bennett showed me a cool trick to solve this problem. Simply wrap the end of your grip with silicon tape. You can find it in the plumbing department at Home Depot under the name Stretch and Seal. This tape has a natural friction that makes it stick to itself, not your rod. There’s no adhesive so it doesn’t leave a residue on the grip. It does, however, give you a nice slip-free surface to pinch your running line against. It doesn’t get slippery when it gets wet. Heat and cold don’t disturb it and it doesn’t come off in water. So for about eight bucks you can put a stop to slippery mono running line on all your Spey rods. Louis Cahill Gink & Gasoline www.ginkandgasoline.com hookups@ginkandgasoline.com Sign Up For Our Weekly Newsletter!
Read More »Saturday Shoutout / Cohen Made
Pat Cohen puts his soul into fly tying.
There are few tiers out there as original as Pat Cohen. His techniques and the creations they yield are stellar. Bloomberg recently did a great interview and companion video on Pat. It’s a great sneak peak into his inspirations and the crafting of some of today’s most unique patters.
CHECK OUT PAT COHEN ON BLOOMBERG’S SERIES, MADE
Read More »Arc, Fly Lines And Tippet With A Twist
Unique isn’t a word that normally comes to mind when thinking of fly lines and tippet.
Arc products, however, seem to be just that. Especially their tippet, which comes in a couple of vey unique offerings. Fluoro-coat, a hybrid monofilament nylon tippet coated in fluorocarbon, and a Camo tippet which actually changes color subtly every couple of inches.
They also make some very sweet fly lines. I’ve used several of them and been very pleased. While most line companies are fracturing their product lines into many special purpose fly lines, arc is embracing simplicity with their 99 lines, made to fit 99% of your average fishing situations. It’s an interesting idea and the lines are top quality.
CHECK OUT THIS VIDEO TO GET THE DETAILS ON ARC LINES AND TIPPET.
Read More »You Can’t Fix Everything With A Fly Rod
THIS STORY DOES NOT HAVE A HAPPY ENDING AND YOU SHOULD NOT FEEL LIKE YOU HAVE TO READ IT.
But it’s Thanksgiving and I feel like I need to share something personal. At the same time I feel like I need to apologize for doing it. Hopefully something good will come from it. When I started G&G I swore I was going to be painfully honest with my readers but I’ve kept this from you for months. My hope is that it will help someone.
I’ve said before that fly fishing saved my life. That’s not an overstatement. In dark and difficult times I have turned to the river as a refuge. I have found in the cool of the water and the quiet of the woods a place where I can make peace with myself. It has led me back from the edge on many occasions and that’s why I am such an evangelist for the sport. I feel like fly fishing can help almost anyone. It’s a tonic I feel compelled to share.
I haven’t written much about my godson, and I have never used his name. Brandon, who my wife and I call B, was born on my 25th birthday and there was a bond between us from the moment I saw him. He had a tough childhood, growing up without his mother. I looked after him when his dad worked. He stayed with me, traveled with me and later worked with me. There was never a time when he was, in my heart, anything less than my child.
B was a brilliant kid, funny and thoughtful, wise beyond his years. He was easy to love. His teenage years were hard and he was very withdrawn. He had few friends and spent most of his time playing video games. I tried teaching him to fish but he had no real interest in it. He would humor me and go stand in the river but he wasn’t really fishing. He’d have stood in a fire with me if I’d asked him to. Fishing just wasn’t his thing. It couldn’t do for him what it had done for me.
One night B decided he was done. He swallowed a handful of pills. Fortunately, he made a call before losing consciousness and was taken to the hospital. He survived, but he was in and out of the mental health system for the next year. When it seemed that his only option was long term hospitalization, my wife and I stepped in and took him into our home permanently.
B was a mess. He was on eight different psychiatric medications when we got him and was practically a zombie. We found a doctor who helped to get him off the meds and into therapy. Slowly he became his old self. It took years but B got back on his feet. It was the hardest thing Kathy and I have ever done, but it was much harder on B. I know he wanted to give up but he trusted me and did everything I asked of him. He worked so hard to survive.
Having B back in our lives was such a blessing. He was our kid and like any kid he was a giant, messy pile of life. He was huge pain in the ass and a constant joy. He was a comfort and a huge source of worry. He was a full time job and an endless vacation. He was everything I would have ever wanted my son to be. Everything but happy.
Read More »Fly Fishing Tips for Stocked Trout
By Kent Klewein
MY FIRST MEMORY OF BRINGING A TROUT TO HAND WITH A FLY ROD TOOK PLACE ON A SEASONAL TROUT STREAM, LOCATED 45 MINUTES NORTH OF ATLANTA, GA.
It was a far cry from a trophy trout at 10-inches, but that freshly stocked rainbow trout, touched my eleven year old fishing soul to the core. I’ll never forget the excitement I felt watching that stocker chase down and eat my olive woolly bugger at my feet. It felt really good for a change, not relying on that plastic blue can of worms to get the job done. From that day forward, I never looked back, and I’ve moved on to become a respectable trout guide in my area and I’ve fly fished for trout all over the world.
A lot of fly fisherman would laugh at me if I brought that fishing memory up in conversation. Many wouldn’t be able to look past the fact that I was fly fishing for stocked trout that weren’t naturally born in a stream or river. If you happen to be reading this post and you’re one of those fly anglers that I’m referring to, just remember that we aren’t all blessed to have easy access to wild trout. For many of us, wild trout populations are so low (because of poor conservation and land management), it’s not even feasible for us to strategically target them, and if it wasn’t for stocked trout, we’d have no trout at all. If you’re fortunate to be blessed with wild trout populations where you live, don’t forget how that special that is, and please don’t make fun or belittle others who take pride in catching stocked trout. You just make yourself look ungrateful and worthy of having wild trout.
Before I get into my fly fishing tips for stocked trout, I’d like to take a moment to mention a couple of reasons I feel stocked fisheries can be good for the sport. For one, they’re a great place to introduce kids and newcomers to fly fishing for trout. Timed correctly, an angler with zero experience can have great success catching trout. Secondly, put and take trout waters provide great locations for anglers who like to harvest trout, to do so without having to illegally poach on special regulation or wild trout fisheries.
FLY FISHING TIPS FOR STOCKED TROUT
TIP 1: BIG FLIES AND BRIGHT FLIES ARE GENERALLY THE BEST CHOICE FOR FRESHLY STOCKED TROUT
If I knew I was going to be targeting freshly stocked trout (within a week or less of being stocked) I should really only need three types of patterns. The first would be a big Stimulator dry fly. Since stocked fish are conditioned to eating fish food pellets on the surface in the hatcheries, anglers can regularly take them on the surface with big dry flies. A dead drifted dry works really good, but sometimes, twitching or skating it at the end of the drift will also work. If the stocked trout aren’t liking your dry flies, I’d next try stripping a black or olive woolly bugger. A large profiled fly with an erratic action will really get the attention of freshly stocked trout, so much in fact, that they often will swim several feet to eat a big fly like a woolly bugger. And if the woolly bugger isn’t working I’d next rig up a tandem nymph rig and tie on a bright san juan worm or egg pattern off the back. Fluorescent colored flies are very hard for stocked trout to pass up, and they’re usually the ticket until most of the stocked trout have been landed on them multiple times. Try these tactics above for freshly stocked trout.
TIP 2: DON’T MOVE, CHANGE YOUR FLIES FIRST
Don’t always think the fun is over after a few fish. Many anglers move on to new water when all they need to do is change out their flies to something different to continue to catch stocked trout. This works really well when you’ve got crowded water and equally well when you’ve got kids that aren’t very mobile.
TIP 3: SEARCH OUT THE
Read More »Kirk Deeter’s One Man War On The Bobber
I love Kirk Deeter like a brother, but I’m afraid he has lost his mind.
Im his recent article, “We Need Some Bobber-Free Water, Now” Kirk calls for a ban on strike indicators on some trout rivers. I can’t help but respond to this idea, partially because Kirk has intentionally hung a target around his neck, and in the hope that reason will carry the day and maybe my friend will get some much needed psychiatric help! So let’s have some fun.
If you have not read Kirk’s article, I suggest you read it now. – “We Need Some Bobber-Free Water, Now”
Kirk, buddy, I’ve read your manifesto a couple of times and I think you need to come down out of the clock tower before someone gets hurt.
The assertion in this article is that, strike indicators ruin the water for dry fly anglers. That somehow nymph fishermen are cheating and that fishing an indicator is not real fly fishing and guides who allow their clients to use indicators are irresponsible. Kirk goes on to suggest that anglers who practice the “art” of dry fly fishing, the anglers he calls, “the most dedicated,” should enforce a “code of conduct” under which anglers using indicators would be second class citizens relegated to fishing poor water and conditions. A code which would establish a formal class system where guides and guided anglers would have to fish dry flies and bobbers would be reserved for lowly DIY anglers and beginners. Maybe Deeter himself will administer some kind of test to determine which flies, tactics and water anglers may fish according to merit.
Deeter goes on to malign “neophyte guides” and “newbies” for turning the grand old sport of fly fishing into a “numbers game” that’s all about “how many more than how.” and “about what more than why.” He even goes so far as to blame the decline of fishing on the Missouri over the last fifteen years on “the Bobber.” He suggests that indicator anglers are killing fish disproportionately, while he seems to feel it’s ok to target fish on redds as long as you use a dry fly.
Tell me Kirk, have you ever looked at the old B&W photos of our proud forefathers, holding their expansive stringers of huge trout? Why do you suppose fish limits were created in the first place? If nymphs and bobbers are the recent inventions of neophyte guides and their newbie clients, how were those old fellows in the photos killing all of those fish? Harpoons? Or perhaps dry flies?
Today’s bobber-lobbing fly anglers are the same ones you’ll see on Facebook holding their fish in the water, not by the gills or on Twitter, rallying to fight the Pebble Mine. They are, in larger numbers than ever before, women and teenagers, environmentalists and activists. Even when they are a “twenty-something guy with a beard and a trucker hat” they are breathing new life into fly fishing. It was the old guard, the Thurston Howell III crowd and their elitist, private club ethics that almost killed fly fishing. Not the bobber.
Deeter’s argument simply doesn’t hold water. “I’m 100 percent convinced that in some rivers trout only eat tiny nymph patterns because they are bombarded with nymphs all day, every day. Give them a break, and I’m sure they’ll readjust to eating dry flies,” he argues. Come on Kirk? I know you’re smarter than this. Fish are only eating nymphs because they see so many nymphs? That makes no sense at all. If everyone else is fishing nymphs, shouldn’t that make your dry flies that much more appealing?
The truth is very simple.
Read More »Sunday Classic / The Flats, Light Bottom vs. Dark Bottom
Water temperatures and seasons play an important role for fly fishermen fishing the saltwater flats. Saltwater fish prefer to utilize different types of flats throughout the year to maximize their comfort and food intake. When I was new to the saltwater side of the sport, I never gave it much thought on why my guide was choosing to take me fishing on a light colored sandy flat, versus a grassy or dark bottom flat. It wasn’t my expertise, so I just went along with everything. Quite a few years have past since my rookie fishing days in saltwater. I’ve logged many more trips on the saltwater flats, and I’ve taken the time to pick the brains of the saltwater guides, so I could better understand why they choose one type of flat over the other during the year. Below is a quick recap of information on what I’ve gathered from numerous saltwater guides on this subject. Fly fishing on saltwater flats is very similar to bass fishing on large reservoirs, in the fact that water temperature is critical in both for consistently locating fish and productive water. Both freshwater and saltwater fish strive to maintain stable underwater enviornments. When water conditions change, so does the habits and behavior of the game fish we’re targeting, as well as, the food sources they prey upon. Fly fisherman that understand this, are quick to match their fishing tactics with the present conditions on the water, because they know it’s critical for staying on top of the fish and in the action. Light bottomed flats reflect a large portion of the sunlight. When water temperatures are at the extreme end of the comfort zone of saltwater fish, generally during the months of July, August and September, fish will often prefer to frequent light bottomed … Continue reading
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