Natvie Redband Rainbows on the Spokane

Hit the Spokane River and got into some nice fish. This Redband was a beauty. I only had my 4 wt with me so it was quite a fight. After a few minutes I got him to shore and I was able to get a few pictures and a great shot of him heading back home. Next purchase that needs to happen... a new landing net... with a long handle. 

 This guy was long and thick.

 I also got into quite a few small mouth. They are a good fight on light rods.

Big-boy Native Cutts

Headed out to Little North Fork of the Coeur d'Alene and it was great. It was a beautiful drive over one pass and then dropped down into the valley. On the way up I saw this moose taking a drink. After a little hike through the woods, a separeted big toe nail completely off my toe, and a few scratches, I hit the water and fished. I dropped into the water at a beautiful big hole where the river had split and was now rejoining with itself. I was fishing an elk hair caddis with a pheasant tail dropper. Two cast and this big mamma jamma surfaced for the dry. The water is here is crystal clear and the hole is probably 6 feet deep so I can see them coming up and just explode on the surface. After I released the first I got my flies back out on the water and two more casts later, another big guy came up and hit the dry. I said goodbye to my dropper at this point and snipped it off. No need. They kept coming the whole time I fished. All surfacing for the dry. Epic fishing. Sadly the big fish took a toll on my rod and the last picture shows the result. Sad day. Thank goodness I have two tips. I wasn't able to get pictures of all the fish but did get some video of some of the others. Hope you enjoy guys. When are you coming to fish with me? Solo trips are nowhere near as fun having a buddy with me.

 Moose taking a drink.

 First fish of the day. 

Second fish same hole.

 Third fish same hole. Fatties

 Another.

 Beautiful Colors.

I found out how much my a bamboo can handle.

Finished Rod

I built this rod as a go to that would hold up to anything that I put to it. It is a no frills basic design that will do the job and I would be sad if and when anything happens to it. It is a 7/8 wt 8'3" that is the fastest bamboo taper I could find. It should handle carp and even light salmon without a problem. If I ever get to build a rod for Nate, this is the rod I will build! It has Texas written all over it.

Looking like a rod... or a stick with 6 sides

 Last night I was able to plane the butt sections of this beastly 7 weight. Those pieces are huge! The Stanley 9 1/2 got a good workout as well as the model 60 and #18. It is funny how I gravitate to old tools at antique stores in the hopes of finding another great antique plane to add to the bamboo tools selection that I have. I have found that you can never have too many planes and blades: bamboo really dulls them quickly.

Here are the tip and butt sections in the string to look for glue lines before gluing. There are some VERY small gaps butt for a rod that will be used on Carp and other such creatures I think it will do just fine.

Bamboo is where it's at!

Getting closer to some form of a rod.

Most of the time I use a taper that is a proven pattern. In this case I broke the mold and used a taper that i liked, stretched it out to a longer rod, beefed up the tip and created a slight sell near the butt end. We will see how it all goes. One of the great things about rod making is experimenting and this is the biggest experiment I've done so far. Here are the numbers.

 After you get things rough tapered you get the strips laid into these special forms that are used for baking. They do 2 things. One, they help to further straighten the strips for easier final planing and two, they help distribute the heat more evenly into each individual strip to get better tempering.

 A nice end shot of the strips bound in and ready for baking.

 One of the key elements of a good finished rod is very precise measurements. To make sure all of the measurements are as close as possible, the forms are set and the depths written on the forms at each station to frequently check to be sure that things are spot on.

Hopefully this rod will be ready for Muskie and Pike with Daniel in July! It will definitely see Carp in August!

Progress

I have forgotten how addicting it is to build a rod! It has been over a year since I have built one and this project is really bringing me back. While working this one I have been planning the next 3 in my mind! Here are the strips straightened, and cut to length.

Here are the strips planed and ready to go into forms for baking after rough planing.

The start of the pile of curls. I love planing! When a plane is sharp, and I mean SHARP, it almost sounds like a zipper unzipping as you cut across the cane. A little Aerosmith helped the planing along last night.

This puts the pile into perspective. This will triple by the time the rod is complete!

Tonight's project:

1. Rough plane the tips

2. Bake both sections

3. Straighten Butt sections of the next rod

Tiger Muskie Without a Net

So here we go. I went out on Newman Lake on the border of Washington and Idaho last weekend with my friend Scot. He is one of my instructors and a CRNA in the program I am in. We took out Pa's canoe and headed out to the lake. We were fishing along the shore in some lily pads and not having much luck. I had changed flies a few times to various popper patterns. The goal of the trip was a bass and blue gill trip. We fished for about an hour with no luck and decided to head out deeper into the lily pads where I thought, due to the inability of motor boats to get there, we would really get into some fish. We fishing in the lily pads for about an hour and still werent having luck. I switch to a Sparkle Stealth Bomber and was fishing just in the clearing above the head of the fish in this first picture. I had cast across to the where the other lily pads are at the far end and stripped the fly two or three times when I had an agressive strike but I pulled the fly out too soon. From the strike I was pretty excited that we were not getting into some bass after fishing with no luck for quite a while. I cast the fly to about the same spot where the previous strike occured and stripped it one more time when the bomber exploded and was gone, the fish was on and I still had no idea what was on the end other than my rod was flexed to the max. I was fishing my 5-6 weight bamboo rod and the tip was flexed parallel to the handle. The fish took off and as I was getting the fish on the line I was using my left hand as some drag but this fish ripped it through my hand and actually ended up cutting me with my line. Once on  the reel he kept going and pulled out another good bit of line before he had the line wrapped around some lily pads stems. At this point we paddle over to where I am locked up and I just expect that the fish is gone. As I reach down to unwrap my floating line from the stems about 7 feet off the boat I see this monster rise up and splash and I can see he is still on the line. I see him roll over and at this moment realize I dont have a bass on the line. I almost swamp the canoe leaning over to get a glimpse. It is at this exact minute that my friend says, "Dan, did you bring a net?" Being the J-1er that I am, of course I did not and now the fear of how I am goint to get this fish off the line is rushing through my head. I get the fish kind of up near the canoe and see an opportunity to grab him behind the gills. So I did. Little known fact... Those teeth go way back in there. These teeth are not the same teeth as when you catch a large trout. This fish is a mini shark and those are little/big razer teeth. As you can see my hand is definatly in there and the resulting bleeding was not insignificant. This combined with the line burn made fishing the rest of the day slightly uncomfortable but I could care less. I had landed a beautiful Tiger Muskie and needed nothing else. Scot had one other fish on the line but this was the only fish of the day... 24 inches...Worth it.

New Bamboo

With the weather clearing and warming up there is more time to be able to spend in the shop after the kids go to bed. After turning a few wands I got to cleaning up the garage and starting on a new rod last night. Any guesses as to the length and weight?