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PostPosted: Mon Sep 17, 2018 4:53 pm • # 1 
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Joined: 12/31/13
Posts: 309
Location: Magnolia, Texas
Boy I've been away from here for a while...

So back in May my ultra light fly rodding came to a sudden, rather irritating hault when my lovely little 6' 3 weight Cabela's Prime was stolen, along with a couple other rods and reels and flies...

I've been muddling along, focusing mostly on bass fishing this summer, with an occasional trout outing using my 6 weight.

I ordered a new rod last month, which arrived three days ago. This morning I got it out for my first outing. I got this rod to replace my Maxcatch V Nymph, as well as to try a bit shorter rod for trout spey.

I put "Nymph" in quotations in the title, and here, because the rod is built out as a trout spey, with a half-again-as long grip, and a long fighting butt/truncated bottom grip. It's plenty light and crisp to use as a Euronymphing rod - but it's also obviously intended to be used for two handed casting as well - it's a true Switch Rod in this case.

The rod is 11 feet, 5 pieces. This lets it fit into a case for a 4 piece 9 footer just fine. The supplied case is a tad fatter than typical 4 piece rod cases, which is fine with me.

Fit and finish is as good as any imported rod you'd see from $100 to $300 in price tag - wraps are nicely done, the blank is sanded and matte finished, the cork is actual ring cork, not sheet cork, with typical amount of filler. The reel seat appears to be a Pac Bay, or a very good knock off, with a nice burl wood insert with a skeleton frame over it. I've had the same seat on a rod I built before, and I like it. Double locking rings with an O-ring on one gives a nice secure fit.

I wanted to try some trout spey, swung fly work today. We've had a decent amount of rain in the preceeding week - my hope was that there'd be more water in the creeks, maybe get the fish moving. I was disappointed on that end - I was faced with low, clear water. At least the water was still fairly cold.

Starting in my typical place, there was little current. I decided instead of my min-truder type swing flies, I'd start off with one of the two dry flies I brought with - those being a pair of foam & deer hair hoppers, size 10. I went with a floating tip and 9' leader, got a couple half hearted splashes at the fly from 3 inch long baby trout.

Then I realized I forgot my phone and wallet in the car - the former I wanted to retrieve simply to avoid it being stolen, the later I had to retrieve because it held my fishing license. Got to stay legal!

After trekking back up the trail to the car, I decided to walk down the highway to the bridge, where I knew the water would be faster, deeper, and shaded. I almost always catch fish here. Note, I said "Almost" always. Today was a strike out. No hits on my foam hopper. Switching up to a 1" rabbit and deer hair sculpin swing fly, I got a couple sheepish grabs, but no hook ups. I tried swinging, stripping, dead drifting - nada. After a fruitless hour working the areas that fish *should* be hiding in, and not getting anything else, I hiked back upstream toward the car, switching gears from trout spey to euronymphing, replacing my 9 foot leader with one that's about 25 feet long - comprised of 18 feet of 15lb flouro, 12 inches each 25lb red amnesia and hi viz green Berkley Big Game, tied to a Rio tippet ring, then 5 feet of 4X tippet off the tippet ring. I tied on a size 12 bead head soft hackled nymph, a generic fly that produces well on this stream, nada. I worked every pocket that was more than 4 inches deep, worked the shaded areas, the areas where grass overhung the water, there were just no fish, or no eaters anyway.

I was pleased with the rod though - it cast the entire leader with no fly line out the tip top. Very similar to a fast action Tenkara rod.

I'm taking 4 days and going camping at the end of this month on the coast, fishing for both sea run cutthroat trout and salmon - and I intend to give this rod a good workout. Hopefully my 10 weight single hander gets a good workout on some fall Chinook as well :)

With only one outing of a few hours under my belt, my impressions are good with this Aventik rod. I'm going to try it out on my local ponds and lakes too - should make a great chironomid rod.

As far as which lines I was using - I was fishing a 175 grain OPST Commando that I integrated a Rio Slickshooter shooting line to, and fished the day out with a 9 foot floating tip made from the forward portion of a Cabela's (Rio) WF8 Floating line. I simply replaced my 9 foot standard tapered leader with the 25' euro leader when changing techniques. The 175 line casts so nicely with this rod, I don't feel a compelling need to use my 200 grain Skagit Max Short with it - that line pairs nicely with other rods I own anyway. Were I in the market for a new line - the Commando Smooth or similar SA and Rio lines would be the way to do it. I'm falling out of love with switching heads on my trout speys - its a cool idea, love the versitality buuuuut hate stripping loop to loop connections into the guides - it doesn't play well with some rods.

One thing I do plan on trying - is fishing my Airflo 6 weight Double Taper floater on it, to see how well it works as a long belly spey line. One of these days I may get around to replacing my stolen 3 weight standard line, and try one on it. But that's not really what I had in mind when I got this particular rod.


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PostPosted: Mon Sep 17, 2018 8:01 pm • # 2 
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Joined: 07/10/09
Posts: 1555
Location: Plano Texas
Love the report, sorry no fish. Glad the rod is what you were looking for. I also do not like the multiple knots so just nail knot and smoothie the knot with UV Gel with a taper onto the running line. Still a knot but almost no hang up at all. There has to be a difference in the two diameters which will always let you know in the guides.


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PostPosted: Tue Sep 18, 2018 9:46 am • # 3 
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Joined: 05/28/18
Posts: 603
Location: Tucson , Hellazonia
Good report . I have the Maxcatch 10' Performance Nymph 3wt . These rods are a great deal for the money IMHO .


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PostPosted: Tue Sep 18, 2018 11:02 pm • # 4 
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Joined: 08/31/15
Posts: 1042
Location: Coppell, TX
Good to hear from you again Mac and good to hear the new rod meets expectations. Enjoyed reading the report.


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PostPosted: Wed Sep 26, 2018 7:02 pm • # 5 
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Joined: 06/28/18
Posts: 121
Location: Cornelius, NC
I've never cast a fly rod over 9 ft. Long.


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