TR for the Bighorn Micro Clave and a Trip to Chas's

Great Tr Warren.
However, after viewing the pictures of you hooking and landing your first Humpie, I can understand
why you were concerned about breaking your 6wt, and quite possibly why you broke Chas's 8wt.
The angle you are holding the rod relative to the fish's pull places undue strain on the rod.
Although most modern rods can usually withstand a steady pull at that angle, a sudden lunge by a heavy
fish will often break a rod held at that angle. With strong heavy fish, you should try to keep the
angle between the projection of the plane of the rod (if it were not bent) and the pull of the fish at
not much less than 90deg. In the pictures (0016 & 0017.JPG), you appear to be holding an angle of
60deg. or less.
I regularly use a 6wt for steelhead and Coho in strong current much larger than the Humpies you were
catching (my largest on a 6wt is a 22# steelhead), and although I have broken rods other ways, the
only time I have done so on a fish is when I violated the guidelines I stated above. Following those
guidelines, I can land fish in the 5-20# range every bit as fast as those using 8 & 9wt rods can.


--
Bob Weinberger - La Grande, OR

Remove "invalid" and place a dot between bobs and stuff to reply email

"B J Conner" wrote in "Offie Bound" ??
You may have the work virus.

There is a new virus. The code name is "WORK". If you receive WORK from
your colleagues, your boss, via e-mail, or from anyone else-do not touch
WORK under any circumstances. This virus wipes out your private life
completely.
If you should happen to come in contact with this virus, take two friends
&
go straight to the nearest bar. Order drinks & after three rounds, you
will find that WORK has been completely deleted from your brain.
Forward this virus warning immediately to at least 5 friends.
should you realize you do not have five friends, this means you are
already
infected by this virus & WORK already controls your whole life. If this is
the case, go to the bar & stay until you make at least 5 friends.

Good advice, myself and a few other guides have started our own AA...
Athletes Anonomous. It's basically just a support group and works thus:
If a member of the group feels the need to exercise at any point we just
ring someone else in the group and they'll come over and drink with us until
the urge passes.

--
Clark Reid
http://www.dryflynz.com
Umpqua Designer Flytier

"Frank Reid" moc.deepselbac@diersicnarf wrote:
Work, that is not fly fishing and guiding in a fly fishermans paradise
for a
living, whilst hanging out in a lodge with 12,000 bottles of wine and
designing huge, radioactive cicada flies for Umpqua, is over rated.

Frank,

Thanks for clarifying that, you knew exactly what I meant.

Chas
http://home.comcast.net/~chas.wade/w...ome.html-.html

"Bob Weinberger" wrote:
Great Tr Warren.
However, after viewing the pictures of you hooking and landing your
first Humpie, I can understand
why you were concerned about breaking your 6wt, and quite possibly why
you broke Chas's 8wt.
The angle you are holding the rod relative to the fish's pull places
undue strain on the rod.
Although most modern rods can usually withstand a steady pull at that
angle, a sudden lunge by a heavy
fish will often break a rod held at that angle. With strong heavy
fish, you should try to keep the
angle between the projection of the plane of the rod (if it were not
bent) and the pull of the fish at
not much less than 90deg. In the pictures (0016 & 0017.JPG), you
appear to be holding an angle of
60deg. or less.
I regularly use a 6wt for steelhead and Coho in strong current much
larger than the Humpies you were
catching (my largest on a 6wt is a 22# steelhead), and although I have
broken rods other ways, the
only time I have done so on a fish is when I violated the guidelines I
stated above. Following those
guidelines, I can land fish in the 5-20# range every bit as fast as
those using 8 & 9wt rods can.


I'm with you 100% Bob, but there is more to this than the angle of the
rod. The rod that broke is a Sage RPLX 8wt, and having broken it
myself 4 times and having watched my son break his match for it 3
times, I have to say that there are other more frequent causes. Only
one of those breaks was a result of me sitting on the rod, one was over
my son's back when he was helping me land a 19# pike, and the rest were
"clouser breaks."

Consider the heavy clousers and pike flies that this rod has been
casting. Now and then the fly hits the rod, and the nicks are more
likely the cause of the breaks. We routinely use angles like Warren
was using because we want to get a hold of the fish without the
assistance of a guide. The rod can take a much deeper bend. I suspect
that Warren was the unlucky user after my wife was using the rod. She
did a lot of casting one day, but didn't manage to hook into a fish.
I'm sure the clouser eyed flies hit the rod more than once that day,
and Warren revealed that damage when he was fighting the fish.

Chas
http://home.comcast.net/~chas.wade/w...ome.html-.html

Chas Wade wrote:

I'm with you 100% Bob, but there is more to this than the angle of the
rod.

I watched Warren play that fish. It was upstream and Warren wasn't
putting undue pressure on it.

I can assure you, Bob, that Warren knows how to play a fish, so relax.

Warren wrote:

Another shot of RW's biggun' with me way off in the background
unhooking another fish:
http://www.ruralnetwork.net/%7Etrout...s/DSC_0037.JPG

I foul-hooked this fish in the hump and it got out into the rather
substantial main current of the Skagit and turned sideways. It was one
mother-****ing son-of-bitch to land, even with my 9wt RPLXi. :-)

On Sat, 20 Sep 2003 22:40:40 -0600, Warren wrote:

She
comes and looks at the fish, picks it up, drops it some more
and then they finally release the fish like five minutes
later.

Signs are the way to go. I'd be willing to bet that that couple
didn't have any idea they were doing the fish any harm. I know, but
can't understand, there are a few people who will do a harmless
creature damage because they just don't care, but most do it because
they don't know any better.
--

rbc:vixen,Minnow Goddess,Willow Watcher,and all that sort of thing.
Often taunted by trout.
Only a fool would refuse to believe in luck. Only a damn fool would rely on it.

http://www.visi.com/~cyli

Warren wrote:

The fishing was secondary and only made the trip that much
better but I am already thinking about another visit in the
near future.

Next time, come over for a weekend and let me know enough in advance so
that I can make it over there.

Nice TR BTW.

Darin

rw wrote:

I was thinking about you, Darin. I asked Chas to point out where (on the
map) you live, in Port Townsend. This was a spur-of-the-moment trip. I
had to talk Warren into going while we were on the way back to Bozeman
from the Bighorn.

Maybe we can arrange a Washington Clave some day? Like maybe next year?
The pinks won't be running like this year, but I'm sure something else
will be happening.

We could wait 'till '05 when the pinks will be back but coho run every year.
One thing to remember is that salmon don't keep a deffinate schedule, they
could be late or they could be early, so setting a date might be kind of
tough.

Darin

"rw" wrote in message
m...

I watched Warren play that fish. It was upstream and Warren wasn't
putting undue pressure on it.

I can assure you, Bob, that Warren knows how to play a fish, so relax.
Steve,
I didn't say he was putting undue pressure on the fish, but the angle he is using in the pictures is
putting undue pressure on the ROD. Compare the angle he is using in pictures 0016 and 0017 with the
pictures of you (0030 & 0033) fighting a Humpie. At least as much pressure can be put on the fish
with the angle you used as with the angle that Warren used. However, the stress on the rod is much
greater with the acute angle that he used.

Chas,
While an acute rod angle may be necessary to land a fish by yourself in tight quarters, based on the
room around you guys as shown in the pictures, there was no need at that location. I can appreciate
what you say about clouser nicks, having broken two rods as a result of them while fishing for Cohos
on Kodiak.

BTW I leave for Kodiak day after tomorrow for a week of chasing big Cohos.


--
Bob Weinberger - La Grande, OR

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