Most of us have spent a day on the water with someone who’s gear situation seems exceptionally well organized, from the layout of their boat to the packing of their truck. Heck, you might even be that person!
If you’re not that person, you may have wondered why anyone would take the time to be so organized in the first place.. It’s just fishing gear after all, and wouldn’t you rather spend your time, you know, fishing and not organizing?
Well, what these select few of organized anglers realize is that the better organized your gear is, the less time you spend fumbling around with it, meaning the more time your fly actually spends in the water, and in the long run, the more fish you’re going to catch!
Rigging rods is arguably one of the most time consuming parts of any fishing day. Ideally, your rods would stay rigged throughout the day, as breaking them down between runs gets old, not to mention takes time out of your fishing day. However, not all of us have rod racks able to accommodate fully rigged rods, or have the space in the boat for all the rods you ‘might’ fish in a day. Fully rigged rods, especially long two-handers, can be cumbersome when hiking through the sticks to the river as well. Therefore, we’re always looking for a better way to transport our rods to get our fly in the water as quick as possible when its go time.
We were recently shown a clever way of breaking down rods (either single or two handed rods) while fully rigged by Alaska West guide, Grant Turner, which uses no additional gear than your rig itself. It works pretty darn slick for a quick transport between runs, hopping in the truck on the way to the next spot, or when stomping through the alders, and here’s how it works..
Now, when it comes time to fish, simply unwrap the sinktip or leader, slide the ferrules together and voila! You’re rigged and ready to go!
Note: This method is best used as a quick method to tidy up your rigged rod for quick transport but does very little to protect it from impact, especially the tip section. Normal care still must be taken to avoid breakage.
This is a good method but one suggestion as to the order of operations. The first step should be separating the rod and you should have some slack line while doing so. Sometimes ferrules stick just a bit and if you pull apart the rod with the line tight and the hook in the guide you run the risk of snapping the tip of your rod.
Good counsel for saving time, that I have so often lost.
One question though, and I’m not trying to pick you to
Pisces. But for the life of me, why would you go to such
preparation and even for the sake of a photograph ever
place your rod or any portion of it except the butt end,
on the ground where the sand and gravel will mess it up?
I think this is the first negative comment I’ve made in
two years, so I hope you don’t throw me out with the
rusty hooks! 🙂
Another suggestion, I use a spring loaded cord stopper with a loop of small diameter shock cord to hold top folded sections together. When you snug it up, the shock cord provides enough pressure to hold the line in place and eliminates having to wrap the line around the sections to hold them together….
This works great. Thanks for providing it. I’ve tried some different method, but I haven’t found one that works as well.
What about doing this, then putting the whole thing in a rod/reel combo case? For a longer hike, I’d be hesitant to carry a naked fly rod. I’ve also considered a sleeve to pull over the upper half before folding it over, to keep the two rod parts from jangling against each other. I keep searching for a solution to this issue — it’s the holy grail of mobility, at least for me. I like to pre-rig before I get to the river, when I already know the place I’m going, so these solutions are good for that, too. The best I’ve found so far is to just have a rig (tippet on down) ready to go on a foam, then tie that to a tippet ring that’s already on the end of my leader and line, in the spool. I still have to deal with assembling and breaking down the whole rod, but at least I don’t have to re-tie all those knots. Still searching for a better way, however… Maybe some variation of this method is the answer, like I said with the addition of a case. For my 10-ft rod, that’s a 5-ft long case, but it might be worth it. Because it’s just one trip or fall, and there goes my bare rod against a rock! I don’t want to repeat that one.