TRAVELINGWITHTOOLS

I’m staked out here on Hebgen Lake near West Yellowstone, Montana and I’m getting excited to fish the Madison River Fall Run. The town had a fly fishing and art festival last weekend called “Wretched Mess Fest“, which is just a damn great name. My first motorcycle was a Yamaha XS500 that I lovingly referred to as the Wretched Excess, so of course I approve of wretched messes.

On Friday I watched a presentation by Simon Gawesworth on single hand spey casting. I’ve been using a single hand spey outfit for the last few years when I hit the Madison in September and October, and it was interesting to see some new techniques. But the main reason I wanted to visit the festival was the event called the Spey Hang on the river on Saturday. A few years ago, I was fishing a run by the highway where the event was going on and I didn’t go over to participate, as I was happy to be fishing by myself.

But I’ve been thinking about upgrading my arsenal to include a two-handed trout spey rod. “Trout Spey” is a relatively new market segment that’s been quickly growing over the last ten or so years. It is basically a segment of new gear that downsizes the 12 to 15 foot rods that were created to fish for very large ocean-going salmon on the river Spey in Scotland, to be appropriately sized for trout. I own an 11.5 foot two-hander that I bought for steelhead back in 2017, but it is way too heavy a rod to fish for trout on the rivers of Montana. I did really enjoy casting it, even though it never caught an adult steelhead.

So I went to the Spey Hang and test cast a half dozen different rods and lines. All of my rods are inexpensive models and I was initially set to buy an entry level rod that’s priced around $250, and it cast just fine. It felt a little cheap though, compared to the $350 version from the same company. Of course, I had to also test a high end rod, and I was warned that it might be an expensive decision… The $1300 CF Burkheimer rod did, in fact feel pretty amazing. But not almost a thousand bucks better!

I ended up buying the Echo TR2 four weight, which is 11′ 3″. After adding a reel with spare spools, three lines and some tips, I’m about a grand poorer. I’ve test cast all three lines now and I need to fine tune the setups a little , as none of them cast as well as the lines I tried at the Spey Hang.

The Scientific Anglers Scandi line I bought (SA Spey Lite Float, 300 grain) is the same one I tested at the West Yellowstone casting pool before deciding, and the leader/tip combination makes a huge difference. Bucky at Blue Ribbon Flies was kind enough to let me take one of his reels with the line I was interested in out the door to test drive on my new rod. Even though it is a bit lighter than the line recommended by Echo, it cast great with the leader that it had on it, which I neglected to buy one of!

I’ll write some more about the differences between the 3 lines after I’ve had some more time on them.

I’ve been focused on tying flies for the last few days few days, and have filled one box with trout spey style streamers. I still need to twist up some new soft hackles to flesh out the selection.

I’ll be heading through Yellowstone Park towards Gardiner for about a week, where I’ll fish the ‘Stone and Gardner, and take a few trips into the park. Then to Bakers Hole on the Madison for the last week of September. It got cold and wet yesterday, and that should motivate the fish to start pushing up the river. Fingers crossed!