I got some pretty nice new gear! Among the purchases were a Douglas Sky fly rod (excellent rod, seems to do EVERYTHING very well!), a couple Allen Kraken fly reels, and an Allen Alluvion fly rod (very impressed with this rod...has great feel and its just SO FUN to fish with!).
But I admit with all the great reviews I've read over the past few years in regards to the Orvis Helios 2 Tip Flex rod, I knew I really wanted one in a 9' 6wt, But apparently I'm not comfortable outlaying the kind of money it would take to buy one brand new. I've been watching for used ones on eBay, placed bids on a couple, that quickly went beyond my mental limit.
And then a used one showed up on a message board. I felt the asking price was reasonable. I bought it. It was delivered to my house on Saturday. I unpacked it, assembled the rod, marveled at its lightness and balance. It was in immaculate condition, I didn't see a speck of dirt or even a single scratch on it. For all intents and purposes....brand new! I then attached a reel and lined up the rod....and took it fishing.
Oh my. I'm in love. I started it off with the toughest challenge I usually put my rods through...casting blockhead poppers for largemouth and smallmouth bass. Now...there was no wind that evening, but I will say it threw that popper extremely well. I realize this rod has a lot of hype associated with it...but after fishing it, I realize in this case there is NO hype....its real. It lives up to everything ever said about it. It is accurate at both short, mid, and long ranges. And it can actually hit those long ranges!
I caught maybe 8 bass from 12"-16.5", and some big Hybrid Sunfish around the 9" range. All excellent fighters, and the rod handled them as you would hope and expect. Perfectly.
I'm very pleased with my purchase. At the moment, I couldn't honestly tell you whether the Douglas Sky or the Orvis Helios 2 is better...they are BOTH extremely capable rods and top choices for any serious fly angler. I would have no problem recommending each of them. One thing I had read regarding rods of this caliber, and I would like to paraphrase here, is: If you don't have one already, you owe it to yourself to GET one.
Considering all the nice fish you caught in these pictures, I would second the rod as a great rod for the purpose..... If it works well, no need to look elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteThat first hybrid sunfish is such a perfect textbook example. Punpkinseed and green sunfish I'm guessing? Or bluegill and gs?
ReplyDeleteWith hybrids...sometimes its easy to tell the parentage, but sometimes it isn't so obvious. I've caught (what I believe are) bluegill x green sunfish hybrids AND bluegill x pumpkinseed sunfish hybrids from this same pond. There are pure strain Pumpkinseeds and Bluegills in it for sure, I don't recall if I've caught pure Green Sunfish there yet or not. The pumpkinseed x bluegill hybrids look very pumpkinseed-like. Not sure if I've seen a green x pumpkinseed or not. That would be cool! Anyway...so on that first one, I'm not totally sure, but I would vote Bluegill X Green.
DeleteDave
ReplyDeleteAll those species are extremely healthy for ponds. I was reading an article the other day on bluegill and their size. In short the article said according to research one needs to leave numbers of large bluegill to spawn and pass their DNA along so the waters they live in will continue to produce large healthy gills. Also a slot limit was recommended on all bluegill species. I assume most of the fish in these ponds where you are fishing are released to fight another day which accounts for the size. Those pumpkin seed bluegill are so colorful; a fine way to break in that new fly rod. Thanks for sharing
We've read many of these same articles, Bill. :) I wrote a brief summary about it here after attending a pond management seminar:
Deletehttp://fishndave.blogspot.com/2016/04/pond-management-seminar.html
In addition to releasing all bluegills over a certain size (say, 8" or 9"+), an alternative suggested was to release all males, but keep (if you wish) only female bluegills...of any size.
I release all my fish. If I want to eat fish, I will go buy it. Weird, right? I should coin this phrase "Conserve Locally, Harvest Globally"! ha!