AFS Field Notes - July 26th, 2018
Well after a long 5 months of dealing with a broken foot, I can finally put on my wading boots and and wade fairly comfortably. Last weekend I went out and floated the Upper Rogue with buddies Marcus Mattioli and Jon Hazlett, with high confidence that we would be running into at least a couple Steelhead. Man was I wrong. We fished hard all day, the only fish we encountered was one that I hooked early on in the first run. Something about when Marcus and I fish together - I swear we are bad juju for eachother. Neither of us has ever seen the other catch a Steelhead. And we have fished together A LOT, seriously, never seen that dude catch a fish - I’ve seen pictures though. The same goes with Jon, for as many days that we’ve fished together our success rate is pretty far down there. Maybe you’re just not supposed to fish with the people you work with, maybe there’s a bad omen there or something, who knows. I’m not saying that Jon & Marcus don’t catch fish, I’m just saying when we fish together it’s more of a day for casting and drinking beer. If you see the three of us on the water someday, be sure to fish behind us as we’ll likely leave almost every fish in the river un-touched! Oh and neither Jon nor Marcus brought beer.
Anyways, besides that lack of fish and the ridiculous amount of smoke in the air, it was a good day of casting nice rods and scandi lines as well as some new Trout Spey lines from RIO. I was fishing my Jefferson 6130 with a RAGE 450 which was a really nice set up. I also brought my Renegade 7110 paired up with a SA Spey Lite 330 - definitely my favorite summer set-up when I don’t necessarily need a full spey rod. I was fishing about a 16’ mono leader with that Jefferson 6130/Rage 450 when I hooked that Steelhead, on a Brown/Orange traditional that Marcus tied up.
Jon brought his Sage Pulse 3110 Trout Spey rod with RIO’s all new InTouch Trout Spey Shooting head in a 265gr. First off, I had never casted that 3110 Pulse before and good god is that a nice rod to cast. The action of the rod is perfect for light set-ups and it had A TON of horse power for the size rod that it is. Second, the new Trout Spey line from RIO was amazing, incredibly easy to throw nice loops and was able to handle a versileader with ease. I highly recommend both of these to anyone interested in getting into/stepping up their Trout Spey Game.
All in all another good day of fishing in the books, can’t wait till the next!
Written by Chris Myron
Photos - Marcus Mattioli
