Zach,
The Missouri river below Craig owns my old Sage rod and, a Bauer reel. We were out about four weeks ago. Two days into the trip, we’re fishing, I hook a nice brown, land him, buddy rows up next to bank, gets my camera out, takes pic, start to release fish, notices he needs extra time to recover so we pay extra attention to the fish. We don’t notice that my slack line that is hanging out of the rear of the boat has grabbed a bush. Not a big deal except that we didn’t anchor and we were concerned with reviving the fish. Don’t remember if I heard it or just noticed that my rod was floating behind the boat as we got caught up in swift current. Talk about pandimonium…My buddy can’t back row quick enough to get to it, I don’t remember what exactly happened to the fish as I thought about swiping at the rod with the long handled net, Watched in horror as it sank out of sight in a deep, dark hole.Probably real lucky my buddy does’nt throw my Nikon out of the boat trying to back row while I’m screaming. Talk about a sick feeling. That’s a real lesson though….pay attention to rod tips hanging out of the boat. I knew that, but we had a distraction that usually does’nt happen.I was determined not to let that ruin the next two weeks and we wound up having a good trip. but I miss my z-axis.