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03/19/10
all things fly fishing in hawaii:
”clay's week in review.”
this week for me turned out to be all about trying out new gear. on saturday, i ran out to hickam for a half hour or so with duff. bob meiser sent him a 9’9” 10/11 switch to use as a trevally rod. we tried it out with the heaviest line we had which happened to be a prototype 600 grain monic skagit. it casted okay. the rod had that sweet magic feel to it that all meiser rods seem to be infused with, but the 600 grain weight felt light for that "stick". it casted a little better when we added a 109 grain tip to the tip that came with the line, but that made the whole system pretty long for a 909 switch. in the end we both decided that maybe a 720 head would work great and i have one on the way. the rod itself feels like quite a fish conquering beast and i’m sure it will man handle pretty much anything we can throw at it (at least here in hawaii). in addition to trevally, i think it would make a superb two hander for shibis (small tuna) and other offshore creatures.
on sunday, the nwff crew e.t., sean, and i went out to ke’ehi with friend of the shop kai and loomis/shimano rep garett. the deal for me on this day was to test drive the sage 990-4 tcx and to get kai a fish. the tide was good and the weather was perfect. the only problem we had was with the fish. for reasons only known by the fish gods and the fish themselves, they just never really showed up. i was not surprised. after fifteen plus years of bonefishing with a fly rod in hawaii you tend to learn a few things. two of the most important things that i have learned is that you’ll never know unless you go and sometimes like that. anyway out of the slim pickin’s that were up on the flat that day e.t. work his magic and got one. later kai, e.t., and i managed to team up and get kai his first bone (which made my day because kai is such a nice guy).
i did get a chance to get down and dirty with the tcx... and i love it. the tcx series is the type of rods that i pesonally really like. i call it fast with feel. there are a multitude of fast rods out there these days but only a handful of them have the "loving feeling" the tcx is no doubt one of them. i used a rio tropical outbound short with a ten foot airflo poly leader and about three feet of tippet. i chose the outbound short because we were going to ke’ehi where short accurate casts are the norm. the extra weight of the outbound short lines up front load up rods nicely in close (often in hawaii it is real close) where many other “bonefish” lines fail. the knock on the ob short for our fishing is that it is basically an integrated shooting head, designed to cast big or heavy flies and is not the most delicate when presenting a fly. the addition of the poly leader really smoothed out the turnover and i was quite pleased with the set up. this will definitely be my choice for sight fishing on those days with poor visibility where the effective sighting range is inside of thirty feet. if you're out there and find you are doing more “leader flipping” than fly casting throughout your sight fishing bonefish day, you may just want to give this set up a try. it actually loads the rod in close and is lazer accurate.
kai from the bonefish's view.
brother kai with his first bone in hi on the fly.
mild mannered e.t. goes into a phone booth and changes into super loomis guide!
the next day sean and nankos mike went out to k bay and sean checked in with this pic of mike and k bay bone.
on wednesday i took a cruise up to the lake with shimano/loomis rep garett and surfa boy craig. i had some trailer maintenance to take care of and the guys wanted to fish. with the help of garett (and his sweet tools, thanks bro) we got the trailer back in shape in a matter of minutes. the lake has come up a lot from the recent rains and, as i expected, the action has slowed quite a bit since the last time i was there. the fish that were beginning to spawn are now either off the spawn or nesting ten feet underwater (no one i asked really knows what happens). i gave the g. loomis 6wt. shore stalker a chuck. the rod was really nice but like many of the newer g. loomis rods was a bit stiffy for my taste. to be fair, we were casting it with an old rio windcutter, and it felt great when you had 50 plus feet of line in the air. we also fished the "now everyone's favorite rod for the lake" sage bass series.
i hooked a nice peacock that weight out just shy of four pounds with the shore stalker near some wood. in classic clay style, i put the brakes on the fish and the rod performed flawlessly, powering the tuc away from the wood from whence it came. the fish never had a chance and the guys were amazed at the bend i put in that rod. we caught a few other small peacocks and a couple of red devils but that was about it... and then the rain came and boy did it ever come. the three of us got annihilated. we stuck it out for another hour or so before realizing that it was not going to stop. on the way back we were treated to the thousand falls of wahiawa as the run off from everywhere in the general vicinity converged upon the lake. i’m sure that it has come up another three feet just from the rain that we experienced and i wouldn’t be surprised if the lake will be up to “pre kaloko dam breaking” levels until the one working pump can drain it back down.
yesterday i went out to hickam for an evening casting session with the boys of the nwff crew deano, craig, and kirksta. the guys all charged out to pound while i inside casting my sage z axis 8129-4. i just got this rod and wanted to get it dialed in. i tried a bunch of heads with it and this versatile rod casted all of them quite well. i tried the rio 8/9 afs, the rio skagit flight 550 (with a 140 grain floating and intermediate tips), and the airflo scandi compact in 450 and 480. i liked them all but i really liked the airflo scandi 450 grain. this was the first time that i tried the rio flight and i really like the line but the 550 felt a little to heavy to me. i think the 525 will be the ticket. deano caught a little rat with his beulah 12’ 7” spey rod and beulah tonic line.
so not that many fish this week but i always enjoy doing my homework and horsing around with a bunch of different gear. tomorrow's another day and you know the nwff crew and i will be out there searching for more good times.
clay.
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