Just added…places coming soon

Arkansas River, Colorado – Fly Fishing Hatch Chart

Orvis Mach Large Arbor IV – 2009 Reader’s Choice Award

Kudos to Orvis and Sage for snagging the 2009 Fly Rod & Reel Magazine’s Readers’ Choice Awards. Here is a look at the Orvis Mach Large Arbor IV reel. Being an older model reel, unfortunately, according to the Orvis web site, the reel is no longer available. So if you’re looking to find one you’ll need to do a bit of searching.

Mach Large Arbor Reels

Mach reels combine light weight, large backing capacity, and drag power more effectively at a better price than any reel on the market. Machined design is 35% lighter than the Orvis Vortex for all-day casting comfort and rod/reel system balance. Large arbor design provides twice the backing capacity as Orvis Battenkill Large Arbor V with nearly the same line retrieval rate, 11″ per revolution. Standard arbor reels on average retrieve only 6″ of line per revolution. Eight separate stainless steel to Broflon(R) drag surfaces provide smooth, tippet-protecting start-up, tremendous stopping power.Large drag knob features 630° indexed adjustment range that is numbered for reference so switching from fighting drag to stripping drag and back again is quick and easy. No tools needed to easily swap spools to load a different line for changing angling conditions. Hard anodized finish is embedded into the 6262-T6 aerospace-grade aluminum for durability.100% corrosion-proof reel is easy to disassemble and clean. Easily switched from right- to left-hand retrieve. For fly-line weights 4-13

Any users out there care to share their comments?

Carelessness Costs You Fish

It was one of those days when small fish rise to anything that’s offered. Unless I struck fast and a bit hard, I wouldn’t connect with them. I understood this and deliberately ignored these small fry for several hours. But at last I became annoyed and started throwing the hook into them.

The rise that undid me looked like all the others. I cast to it, struck savagely – and busted my 4X leader on a beautiful fish that I knew went more than 3 lbs. I had a look at him as the force of the strike turned him over.

I kicked myself for my carelessness, and decided a. few days later to come back and have another whack at him. The moment I returned to the pool I saw a fish rising in exactly the same spot. Again I had on a 4X leader as I cast to the rise.

The trout struck and I discovered that, if anything, he was bigger than I had at first believed. And once again I was to make one disgracefully careless mistake. Instead of reeling in my slack line and playing the fish from the reel, I chose to strip the line in and feed it out by hand.

However, everything went well right up to the instant I figured the trout was beaten. I led him in to the beach; he was too large a fish to fit into any ordinary net. I had slack line lying all over the water and on the beach when suddenly the trout got his second wind and went churning back out to midstream. He took the slack line out so fast that I could do nothing except trust to luck. As it turned out, my luck was bad. The line kinked in a guide, and instantly the leader snapped.

And that was that. I’ve never been so careless as to play a big fish in that manner again; I keep my line on my reel, as I should. This, incidentally, requires considerable technique when using a single-action reel, but it’s a trick worth mastering.

- Curtis Wirth, Maine

Calling all Fishing Stories – Believeable or Not; Fishing Tales – Tall or Short

Everyone who has ever been fishing has a story to tell.

Maybe it’s about the one that got away or the one “you caught, but let go – (wink, wink)”. Perhaps it’s about your favorite fishing spot or place. Such stories on fishing have been passed on from generation to generation, fishing buddy to fishing buddy only by their telling. Many an urban legend was started by a simple fish story, perhaps read somewhere, or overheard, and retold.

We’ve uncovered a few stories and tales that we will be sharing with you from time to time. That being said, we encourage you to submit stories or tales – believable or not – that you would like to see published here, and passed on for years to come.

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