He's probably fished for steelhead longer than I have been alive.
And stay's firmly attached to his single hand rod.
I jokingly started calling him the MSH, or the militant single hander because on this river, the traditional 9 foot 8 weight is as he calls it, the novelty act.
We oooh and aaaah over 100 foot casts that boom out from our spey rods, but the truth of the matter is that we as spey guys aren't always fishing the water as well as we should. I sat and watched my friend work a run and I noticed his constant attention to detail that put the fly right through each bucket of each piece of water we fished.
It was beautiful watching a master at his craft.
Sure he missed some of the "way out there water" that 2 handed casters can hit, but guess who was the one caught fish.
The Militant Single Hander.
That's a huge piece of water for anyone to cover. One thing I run into with the Spey guys, is (for such latecomers) a smug sense of superiority as gearheads, as though single handers didn't know the benefits of longer two handed rods. We knew all about them in the day, but we rejected them as unsporting. Lee Wulff to the extreme of fishing tiny 6 footers.
ReplyDeleteOf course, one thing at the time was that you did need to put up with a lot of weight with a long rod. Then along came graphite and you could have your cake and eat it too. Taking the easy way was never so... easy. Plus apparently the new generation didn't know how to teach themselves to cast, but along came video, and the internet organized spey conclave. Heave ho, instant tangle at the river's edge. Bless their little hearts.
Thanks for all the great stories?