10 and 11 foot one handed rods

[Ivan]

Does any use these long rods. I understand that they are used very widely in Europe for fishing traditional wet flys fishing. With the three dropper method. Most of us here use them for pontoons and tubes. Does anyone use either 10 or 11 ft European style one handed rod?

[huntfish]

Ivan,
I have a 10ft, 4# that I routinely use on lakes for bream and bass. The longer rod allows me to pick up more line, especially when I'm in my float tube.

[Ivan]

Have you wade fished with it on the hooch?

[flyflicker]

Ivan,

I've got a 10' 8wt single hand Loomis I bought for steelhead. The extra length really helps keep more line out of the water for drifting nymphs. It makes a great striper and redfish rod too, plenty of power to shoot line well. It does get tiring casting it all day. That might not be a problem with a lighter weight rod.

[huntfish]

Ivan,
Yes I have used it on the Hooch, does well from a tube. Brian Stout of Stout Rods built it for me. However with the hookup with a Striper below Morgan Falls, it did not really handle good. Read as SNAP on the tippet.

[Ivan]

Brian does good work I think he built Don Miller's 10 footers as well.

I'm glad see that I'm not only one whose hooked a striper below Morgans Falls. I think that there might have been some people that may have doubt their existance.

What time of year did hook into the striper?

[Ivan]

The reason I asked about the use of these rods is because I was watching Fly Fish TV today on OLN and they had a discusion on wet fly fsihing with these long rods. With Davy Wooten and Gary Taylor. The flies that they fished where the traditonal wet patterns (not the nymphs we normally use). The rods where 11'3". They talked about the advantages of using the long rod using the traditional wet fly method.

As per Davy "You can control line, use techniques and work flies that would be impossible with a shorter rod". Davy who was born in Whales, presented several good reasons why he uses the long rod for that style of fishing. One was that he uses the European three fly technique; where the flies are spaced 30" apart. Each fly is chosen for a different reason as it represents a different food at each spot on the leader that it is placed. Therw was a lot information there almost TMI for the time they had. There is suppose to be a follow up program.

I know that we have several members who are now using the two handed spey rod employing some those european techniques. I was curious to see if anyone besides Don Miller has tried the one handed rod employing some of the european techniques as well

I'd like to try something different with my 10' 4 wt. Wet fly fishing (which I already do but not enough of) might be interesting using the european technique.

[Bob M]

The 6 wt speys are pretty light and you can easily cast them with one hand, although it's not something that you would want to do all day long. Another upside of a spey is that you will improve your roll casting with single hand rods. A downside is that speys are not the rods to use with a tube or toon.

[Rusty Fowler]

I've got 4 10ft rods that I really like! I don't use them for float tube fishing or especially for wets. Line control is the reason I bought these rods. If I have someone thats having trouble with mending I'll bring along a 10 footer and it usually helps a lot. Old timers in the Smokies use/used very long cane rods with a length of leader tied to the end. They called it dappling but its the same as highsticking. I think you'll be surprised at how many fish you'll catch using a longer rod and highsticking technique.

You are right about the wets though. I was using a Winston IM6 10ft 4 wt last Thursday on the South Holston. We were in the middle of a very good sulfur hatch and were catching 10-12 inchers off dries. The bigger fish didn't have anyting to do with the dries. After a while I switched to a tandem yellow dubbed partridge and stuck a fish that promptly broke me off. I rigged up again while the hatch was slowing and finally got a few more cast in. Got a very nice 16. Wets can be sweet.

[huntfish]

Ivan,
You know when the stripers get there. For folks wanting to know.....Here is a hint, you will be sweating. That clue comes from a Texas boy who truly understands high humidity (>90%),

[Ivan]

Huntfish: Got it!! They rip right through the DH and nobody knows it! You'll see trout, chubs and shad flying clean out of the water. We wonder why the fish stopped bitting. The Morgan falls area and Bull sluice lake above the dam are hidden treasures. I think it will stay that way because of the limited access.

Rusty: Wet flies can be deadly. I began fishing them because a friend of my gave me a couple when we fishing bowmans island below beford dam. One gray and another cahill. We were catching when others weren't. They work well during a hatch. They may be better than fishing a dry. When a fly hatches its gone but the emergers are still coming off. I don't know why I stopped fishing them a lot but they were really effective especially at Island Ford, Jones Bridge and Settles. The lead Wing Coachman and March Brown are also good locally.

I was told that the longer rods are the best way to fish the wets during a hatch.