3 broken rods and a sunk hat…
- This topic has 7 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated Apr 23, 2007 at 7:54 pm by
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Extreme fly fishing, that’s what today was. When I loaded the boat there was a gentle breeze blowing and the barometer was falling. We got to the lower lake and headed for some of my old live bait fishing hangouts. I hadn’t even got my rod out when Bill hooked up with a nice Hybrid. Sweet,,, this is going to be a good day. I fooled around a few more minutes and finally got my rod out and that’s about the time all hell broke lose. The rest of the day we faced 15 to 25 mph winds with nowhere to get away from it, and still catch fish.
I got the (wind tamer) 10wt out with 500 grain since most of the fish on the graph were showing up about 15 to 20 feet down anyway. My first cast with the 10 and Bam another nice Hybrid, released that guy and started casting back out.
The wind was blowing across my right shoulder and just as I made the last haul,,, SNAP!! I clousered the tip. Took it off clean just below the second guide. Put that rod away and got my Cabelas FT backup 8wt with 350 grain. Pretty soon were catching fish again and all is good,, until,,, I’m fighting a fish (read, not controlling the boat) and somehow bill gets his line under the outboard. He’s striping back it in when a nice Hybrid slams his fly. Before we could do anything his rod was doubled over under the outboard. SNAP goes an Xi2.. He got the fish in and we were able to get the tip section back but another rod bites the dust, second section above the ferrule. He also gets his backup 8wt out. And once again we started catching fish and all was well,,, kinda.
Notice the rod in this pic…
The action slowed just around dark and we headed in. In all we had about 15 Hybrids in about 4 hours. When we got back to the ramp I pulled my Xi2 that had been in a rod holder all day (I wasn’t about to break it out in that kind of crap) only to find it had somehow been snapped too. This is the second fly rod these holders have broken so needless to say they get the boot.
So in all we broke 2 Xi’s and one Dan Craft rod durring one trip. Ohh and Bill lost his favorite Sage hat on the trip back to the ramp. We didn’t get any of the real giants but I’m still calling it a very successful day though. I’ll rebuild the broken sections and our wallets will be a little lighter but I can’t wait to do it again.
I checked your code and somehow the board had put in some sizing numbers that were weird – like 646 by 540 or something.
All the rods are covered. I think Dan charges $30 if you break it or free if it’s a defect. I always tell him when I’ve done a stupid. Sage will hopefully just send me the sections for the Xi’s and let me chance a good fit, I think the replacement is $30 for them to. I’ve got three others I’ve needed to fix so looks like I’ll be building for a week or so. Good thing is the second section is the easiest to build….
I was inspecting the Xi2 last night and man that blank is thick on the inside. Looks like a carbon scrim with graphite built around it. Pretty impressive blank to be as light as it is. I doubt any rod could have withstood the abuse that did them in. Striper Hybrid trips, are hard on gear. A few years ago I had a Striper take on a bait rod. The hit was so hard it broke the rod holder off at the base and a Shimano Calcutta 400 and an innerflow rod flew over the side. The holder that broke was new from Cabelas and Cabelas replaced the holder, the rod, the reel, and the line on the reel, about $350 worth. Of course I had bought it all from them anyway.
Carter that’s my Stratos Center Console. The lake was full of folks who think a boat has to be 25’ long and have 300 million horse power to have a good time plus the 20 to25 mph wind. My trout skiff wouldn’t have had a chance out there in the open water. We were jumping wake going 39 mph all the way to and from our spot. Its fun every once and a while but it gets old pretty fast.
Zach at one time we were out catching the bait guys… You need to look around your area I think Lanier is a hell of a Hybrid Striper lake.
Sweet, thats not really bad then, I guess you can get all the old hardware off the broken section and re-use it meaning your just out the cost of thread and epoxy after you cover the blank?
When and where are you gonna be down there?
Those are some nice boats, I’d really like to have a Maverick or Hewes though.
Here’s the Stratos doing a little flats fishing freshwater style. Yea the water was really muddy but it isn’t usually like that. That’s BD fighting a Carp that I had just untangled from some Cypress trees.
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