In the world of high performance fly reels, there’s a new kid in town – Hatch Outdoors. Okay, maybe ‘new’ isn’t the right word, having started up in 2003, Hatch has quickly gained the reputation of some of the finest machined fly reels in the world.. A great perk to operating lodges in world class…
Read More
reviews
Redington Vapen Red Review
Redington’s Vapen Red fast-action rod has gotten quite a bit of press over the past year. We had the chance to fish one last week at Andros South, and we really liked it. Here’s the review! Intro and Specs We fished the Vapen 890-4V – a 9 foot 8 weight. Redington has another line of…
Read More
RIO Skagit iMOW Tips
RIO’s Skagit MOW Tips have been hugely successful since they launched three years ago, and for good reason. By combining floating and sinking sections of various lengths in sets of 10 foot tips, they allow anglers to fish at different depths, while maintaining the same overall length in their head/tip system. This has simplified things…
Read More
RIO Skagit iShort Heads
If you follow the progression of Skagit-style spey lines on our blog at all, you know that we’ve been pretty excited lately about two trends – the development of better shorter heads, and the development of intermediate density Skagit heads. Short Heads, Intermediate Heads We like fishing modern short Skagit heads (like the RIO Max…
Read More
RIO Skagit Max Review
RIO has just started shipping the Skagit Max, their newest Skagit-style shooting head. The Skagit Max replaces the Skagit Flight as RIO’s go-to floating head for most two-handed rods. We fished the Skagit Max for a week at BC West last month, so we’ll tell you what we thought about it on the Dean. We…
Read More
Sage 7126-4 METHOD Review – The Lightsaber
We recently spent a week at BC West fishing Sage’s new 7126-4 METHOD spey rod. We loved it, we named it, and now we’ll tell you why. History The Sage 7126-4 TCX has been one of the more popular steelhead rods around the Pacific Northwest over the past few years. Light but incredibly powerful, the…
Read More
Fishpond Westwater Rolling Duffel Review
If you travel long distances to fish, you know this scenario all too well. You pack for your trip. You head to the airport and check in. You throw your big rolling duffel on the scale, and it weighs…56 pounds. No matter how pretty your smile, these days 56 pounds results in a hefty overweight…
Read More
Sage ONE Switch Rod – 8116-4 Review
When we heard that the switch rods in Sage’s ONE lineup would be 11’6″ long, we got pretty excited, for two reasons. Rods north of 11′ tend to work a lot better for our ‘short spey’ applications of switch rods. Yeah, an 11′ rod might overhead cast better…but in our world we don’t overhead cast…
Read More
Simms Slick Jacket Preview
We recently got to check out a new jacket from Simms called the Slick Jacket. It’s designed for steelhead and salmon fishing, and we think it’s a game changer. Introduction Let’s start with how fishing for steelhead and salmon is different from fishing for trout – which is, by far, the market for which most…
Read More
Simms Coldweather Shirt Review
The Simms Coldweather Shirt is not an incredibly technical piece of fly fishing gear. It’s a simple, well-designed and constructed, ultra-comfortable shirt that you’re not going to want to take off…ever? Pros The Simms Coldweather Shirt is a polyester faced, polyester micro-fleece lined flannel shirt. The polyester makes it lightweight and quick drying – but it’s…
Read More