Month: July 2026

Old fly rods

July 13, 2026 / stflyfisher / 0 Comments

“Fish sense, applied in the field, is what the old Zen masters would call enlightenment: simply the ability to see what’s right there in front of you without having to sift through a lot of thoughts and theories and, yes, expensive fishing tackle.”

John Gierach

I owe the idea for this piece to Mike Hogue, whose recent Facebook post evoked a thought on the value of old fly rods…

Several years ago, I helped someone sell a fishing estate. For helping I was gifted a new rod that was never fished. Ironically, it’s a cousin of one of my favorite rods I’ve fished for years. My original is a St Croix Legend Elite, 8’6” 4 wt. I was gifted a 9’ 6 wt. St. Croix Legend Elite 2 piece. St. Croix reintroduced the same rod but updated. I set this one aside for some odd reason and the other day I cast it out in the yard. Ironically my wife has a completely identical rod. I forgot how cool this is. Not sure if it’s bad luck to fish a new old rod but what the heck, I’m going to give it a shot. I’ve got a few cool new flies to fish with the new old rod.

My first two fly rods were St. Croix’s – Pro Graphite models in a 7’6″ 4/5 and a 9′ 5/6 – both 2-piece rods of moderate to moderate-fast action, their blanks and wraps finished in dark blue. These rods are devoid of bling: even the reel seats are plain black aluminum, adorned with “Made in the USA” stickers that are now somewhat faded and worn. Both rods feature Fenwick cork grips, an old design that is very comfortable for casting, but one you rarely see anymore. The Pro was St. Croix’s entry level rod and the softest action in their line-up. It was described on the St Croix website back in the day as follows:

“St. Croix Pro Graphite fly rods are the definitive benchmark in fly rod value. Crafted from the same premium SCII graphite as our Imperial series rods, they deliver a smooth transition of power that delivers a level of feel and forgiveness that is unmatched by any other comparable fly rod.“

Indeed, one fly angler had this to say on a fly-fishing forum about the St Croix Pro Graphite:

Unbelievable rod, I would take this rod over my $500 Scott rod any day. I like that the rod has a little weight to it, its perfect for almost all situations, and you won’t find a better price. I wouldn’t waste your money on orvis clearwater or anything like that. This rod is worth its weight in gold, and even after abusing the hell out of it for years, it’s never broken or been damaged, and it still performs to a standard far surpassing any other rod. If you’re a beginner, or someone who’s been fishing for a while, I’d recommend this rod, it’s caught me more fish than I could count.

The Pro was discontinued and eventually replaced with the Premier.

The Fenwick grip – very comfortable for great rod control. Pic courtesy of Proof Fly Fishing.

I still fish my St. Croix’s, solid blue-collar rods unpretentiously dressed in overalls, getting the job done without much fuss. I’ve caught a lot of fish on both of these rods. The 4/5 has been used for early season stockie fishing and for the trout creeks of the Southern Tier.

A nice 2 year old stockie brown and my St Croix 4/5 weight

I also used this rod for bass in the pond behind our house on Grippen Hill. I used the 5/6 for bigger trout waters as well as the warmwater ponds, lakes, and rivers of the Southern Tier.

A Spring largemouth from Grippen Pond landed with my 5/6 weight St Croix

At the time I bought these rods, Dick’s Sporting Goods in Vestal had a fairly decent fly shop – I believe I paid $99 for each. I liked the multi-line rating of each of these rods and figured they could cover most of my fly-fishing needs. At the time of purchase, I was a late-to-the-game newbie, but in retrospect, this purchase was one of uncanny fly-fishing wisdom. The only other rod I could have added would be a 7/8 version, which I’m not sure they even offered. But if it were the case, for less than $300, I’d never need to buy a fly rod again, much to my wife’s delight. The trio would have covered 90% of my fly-fishing needs, save big game / heavy saltwater.

A large grass carp caught using my 5/6 weight St Croix. This fish sipped a chartreuse popper meant for largemouth bass.

While I own a bunch of high-end rods, mainly Scott’s which I particularly love, along with my own hand-built custom rods – over twenty in total – I still like to pull these old St Croix’s out on occasion, to take me back to my beginnings as a fly fisherman. They help to humble me to the years it took for me to get where I am as a dedicated fly angler. Sometimes one feels like they deserve high-end gear – they’ve earned the right to carry it as if their talents and skill are at such a level that these old rods are not up to task, not on par. But weather-worn, their epoxy coated wraps now somewhat yellowed and dull, showing stress cracks in places, and their cork grips mottled where the filler is gone, these old rods deserve a place in every fly fisherman’s quiver, if only to remind us of our beginnings. Back then I knew nothing about fly fishing, but that didn’t stop me from trying, and my St. Croix’s were with me every step of the way.

A fly rod all my own

July 12, 2026 / stflyfisher / 0 Comments

Fly fishers are blessed with opportunity and not only with all the fly fishing that’s available throughout our great country. This wonderful sport offers participants so many other ways to be involved beyond wetting a line, and these niches, in and of themselves, can become full time fly fishing activities. One look at the fly tying greats and it’s readily apparent that some spend more time fly tying than actually using their flies to fool fish.

Beyond fly tying, fly fishermen can learn how to tie custom leaders and how to make nets, wading staffs, and other wading accessories. They can pursue the art of fly casting or focus on the conservation side of the sport. Entomology is yet another area that can be mastered for those anglers with a scientific bent. And finally, there is the craft of fly rod building.

My own foray into rod building started when my local fly fishing club, the BC Flyfishers chapter of FFI, offered a class on the subject. For $125, the class offered participants a fly rod kit. Most kits were 9 foot, 6 weight, 2 piece kits, but a participant could substitute another rod kit of their choosing, as I did. I purchased a 2 piece, 8 weight, medium fast action PacBay blank in a rich forest green finish. The kit was reasonably priced and with the right components could serve duty as a heavy warmwater river rod, lake rod, and light saltwater rod with saltwater grade components. Rod building materials such as epoxy and varnish, tools such as a basic wrapping station, files, and other items, and free instruction given by a master rod maker over three, 4 hour classes, were also included in the price of the class. The class ended up being one of the best “investments” of money I’ve ever made in the realm of fly fishing, much of it attributed to the outstanding instruction of Joe Swam, BCFF member and professional rod maker.

As an overview, I’ll list the basic rod building process:

Finding the spline – a critical step used to determine guide orientation.
Installing the grips – this step consists of prep work to allow the cork to seat into position on the rod and then the application of 2 part epoxy to secure the grip in place. Additionally, the reel seat is shimmed for gluing later in the process.
Ferrule wrapping – this was just the beginning of a lot of rod wrapping. The ferrules (where rod sections are joined) are a stress point and would break eventually if they are not reinforced by wrapping.
Prepping the guides – filing and sanding the guide feet is critical for secure guide placement on the rod blank.
Wrapping the winding check and the hook keeper.
Spacing, aligning and wrapping the guides. Lining guides up true can be challenging.
Prepping and epoxying the reel seat in place and gluing the cap.
Setting and expoxying the tip-top guide in place.
Wrapping the tip-top guide.
Treating the wraps with color preservative (optional) and then finishing the wraps with varnish or epoxy.
Adding cosmetic touches such as a decal, measuring wraps, etc.

While the steps don’t look difficult on paper, the “hands-on” of fly rod building takes a bit of doing. It’s easy to say, for example, “ream the cork grip, glue the rod blank, and slide into place”, but a seasoned rod maker like Joe Swam made all the difference by providing the nuances of the process, like the proper fit of the cork grip, how to mix the 2 part epoxy, and how to ream out a little extra flare at the butt end of the cork grip to give the excess glue a place to collect. I cannot imagine doing this the first few times on my own, and I’d highly recommend that anyone interested in building a fly rod take a class in the art of rod making – even a very basic one – before trying it on one’s own.

Building a graphite or glass fly rod is a matter of assembly. The blank is already fabricated and finished, unlike bamboo where a rod maker truly builds the entire fly rod, blank included. And while a master rod maker can build a bamboo fly rod in 40 hours, beginning graphite or fiberglass rod makers will require this amount of time and quite possibly more.

I found that the building process literally “built” upon itself, excuse the pun. Tying that first wrap and doing it well was motivation to repeat the step with the same or better quality.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — Wrapping the rod guides was enjoyable work, and a fine beer seemed to lubricate the process quite nicely…

Certain components, like the cork grip, and stripper guides, spur one on to complete the project as a blank starts to look more like a fly rod.

Raw materials slowly add character. One can feel the rod evolving. And then at last, the beautiful wraps cry out for varnish or epoxy – the rod blank asks for adornment.

I followed the advice of Joe Swam who recommended the use of McCloskey’s marine spar varnish for coating of the wraps. The other option was the use of a two-part epoxy, which is common in the industry, but Joe prefers varnish for his bamboo rods and feels it is easier and more forgiving for a beginner yet still makes a great finish for even an expert rod maker such as himself.

With each coat of varnish, the wraps filled and smoothed with glossy goodness. After the final and fifth coat was applied, all that was left to do was to add a custom decal. I kept my inscription pretty simple: my name, “rod maker”, and the length, weight, and action of the rod. After securing the decal, a very simple process, I applied two coats of varnish over the decal and let the rod dry adequately over a few more days.

The finished rod impressed me after a lawn casting session. Naturally, I have some bias, for what father isn’t proud of their “child”, real or otherwise. The rod handled a floating WF line just fine, but it was the way it threw an intermediate sink-tip line and a sinking tip fly line with relative ease that really caught my attention. I noted that my addition of two stripper guides (for a total of four) in place of snake guides may have given it a bit more backbone. After casting, thoughts of fishing big flies on the Susquehanna and even casting for blues and stripers in New Jersey’s Barnegat Bay, swirled in my head.

On May 24th I took my rod to the water for its baptism. Nicknamed “The Golden Bear” for its Vestal school colors of green and gold, I strung it up with an 8 weight intermediate sink tip line and waded downriver. The rod balanced perfectly in my hand.

I cast a #6 streamer across a shallow bay and loved how well I could bomb out long casts. Later I set it up with the sink tip line and worked some deeper water. I caught a number of very nice 18″+ bass that evening and returned a few days later to land a best-of-the-year fish.

Rod building has bitten me hard. While I truly cherish my production fly rods, in particular my Scott, TFO, and JP Ross fly rods, among others, the feeling of building and customizing the rod as you truly want, adding touches that identify the rod as wholly your own, and then casting it, fishing it, and finally, feeling the head shake of a good fish – well no fly rod company can sell that…

Toothy Critters

July 6, 2026 / stflyfisher / 0 Comments

With a sag belly and the grin it was born with.
And indeed they spare nobody.
Two, six pounds each, over two foot long.
High and dry in the willow-herb –

One jammed past its gills down the other’s gullet:
The outside eye stared: as a vice locks –
The same iron in his eye
Though its film shrank in death.

From the poem, “Pike” by Ted Hughes

We were finally on the cusp of blissfully warm summer days, the severe winter of 2026 all but forgotten. The month of May was now behind us, though some cool nights still lingered in the wings. In this new land of mine I am much like a young boy hiking to unexplored fishing waters. There is nothing but delight in the savor of discovery.

While still in the throes of early spring I booked a fly-fishing trip with Jay Peck, a very fishy guide in my new home waters. Jay’s many YouTube fishing reports often offer up openings for future trips, and I learned that after spring steelhead, he guides for pike on the fly. I had not smelled their distinct slime odor, nor deftly admired their fanged grin in years, the last time being a rare encounter with a decent one that ambushed a crayfish fly in a side eddy on the Tioughnioga River. I very much longed for a date with a toothy critter.

Jay responded quickly to my request, suggesting I ping him in late May. He’d set something up after scouting and once water temps warmed. Sure enough, we set the trip for June 2nd. As the date approached, the weather gods were in a good mood and provided a perfect forecast – a cool morning, abundant sun, and warmth by mid-morning.

I had assumed all this time that this trip would be local. There are, after all, expansive weedy bays and ponds just minutes from my house, but no, we’d be fishing a place just north of Pulaski that Jay described as being “infested” with pike.

I met Jay at the Byrne Dairy right off 81 in Pulaski, then drove with him, drift boat in tow, to the Lakeview Wildlife Management Area (WMA). This WMA is part of the largest natural freshwater barrier beach system in New York State – a 3,461-acre expanse of diverse habitat including open fields, shrub lands, woodlands, wetlands, and a natural barrier beach. There are 5 ponds in the WMA, but we fished South Colwell Pond, farthest south.

South Colwell Pond has a maximum depth of 8 feet, with an average depth of 4.5 – 5 feet. It covers 102 acres and kisses over 2 miles of mostly marshy shoreline. At the time we fished it, the pond was clear and just starting to weed up. Jay indicated that come summer, it gets pretty weedy but can still be fished topwater. While I did see some small bass near the launch, Jay added that he rarely catches them – they are, besides the sunfish and yellow perch, on the pike’s dinner menu.

South Colwell Pond is accessed via a long gravel road that transitions from open pasture to deep deciduous woods, ending in a clearing overlooking the expanse of the pond. We pulled in and set up, Jay loading two 9 weight fly rods into their tubes in the boat, adding a gear bag, and finally adding two spinning outfits, “in case we need to go to the dark side”. Jay backed his drift boat down the ramp with precision and a few minutes later, was rowing us across the pond to a spot just inside a sandy break to Lake Ontario.

It took a few casts for me to dial in my casting stroke using a fast action 9 weight and as Jay would say, throwing a chicken for a fly. He had me rigged with an intermediate sink tip, a 4-foot leader of equal sections of 40 and 30 lb. leader material and a foot of tie-able wire for a bite guard. On the business end was one of Jay’s articulated streamers in white with flash, a fly similar to Mike Schulz’s Swinging D or a Drunk and Disorderly. We would later switch up to the same fly in yellow perch colors. Both seemed to work equally well.

The pike, it turned out, were a no-show – Jay thought water temps may have still been a little cool for them – but pickerel were happy to play, and these were not the hammer-handle variety, but truly large. Steady strips produced with the pickerel inhaling the fly mid-retrieve – other times they followed right up to the boat and needed just a bit of teasing for an eat. Jay surmised that we were probably getting even more follows than we realized.

The bite was fairly steady all morning but began to fade by early afternoon, as did my casting arm. I hadn’t used a 9 weight since the fall, after all, and the casting was continuous. We called it a day before 2 pm.

On the drive home, I reflected on a great day of fly fishing. While I had wished the pike did show – Jay has caught some in South Colwell Pond that taped out over 40″ – I had never caught a pickerel on the fly. It’s always a good day with the long rod when a species is added to the “firsts” list.

This fishing was, dare I say, “simple”. The pickerel were virtually everywhere and eager to eat. They took on the first few strips, followed the fly and ate, and even hovered about the boat waiting for a tease that triggered their primordial instinct to kill. Even sloppy or errant casts would be just as likely to induce a take as perfect ones. Fly selection didn’t seem to matter – any streamer with movement would have worked – articulated streamers, clousers, deceivers, even big buggers – and color didn’t seem to make a difference.

There are plenty of times on the water when an angler must be on point, where tactics, location, and skill make or break the day. The pay-off can be huge but the cost is intense focus, constant attention to detail, and often times frustration with the ways of fish. As Jay would say, “I’ve never had any luck telling the fish what to eat”.

I think us anglers all need a day with pickerel – if only for a break from the hunt and a day on the water of pure enjoyment.

Month: July 2026

Old fly rods

A fly rod all my own

Toothy Critters

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Archives

Categories

Meta