WHILE it has been a long slow road for advocates of fly fishing in this country to gain a reasonable sort of a following, there has certainly been a lot more interest in this section of our sport over the last few years - in both salt and freshwater.
With any increased awareness of a particular sort of fishing comes the need for more gear suited to that style of fishing. Most of the larger tackle stores around the traps do carry a range of fly tying materials and a few fly rods and reels.
The further south you travel the more likely you are to find better equipped stores as you move into trout country.
There is quite a diversity of fly rods and fly rod blanks available but due to the generally higher cost of this gear you can be hard pressed to find a good range of gear in the one shop.
Brisbane based blank manufacturer, Pacific Composites, have quite an extensive range of fly rod blanks available. The standard “Graph Fly” blanks and the more up market, “Stealth” series of blanks.
The Stealths are made form high grade UB 40 graphite which offers a crisp light weight material suitable for the construction of first class graphite fly rods.
Because some anglers will fish freshwater and others saltwater, we’ve selected a mid range rod which is suitable to be used in both areas (excepting our larger saltwater pelagics)
The Stealth blank with its matt black finish is a pretty smart piece of equipment so we are going to deck it out with some of the finest components available.
The majority of the guides on the rod are going to be snake guides, for this we use the Seymo snakes brought into this country by the Fuji agent. The sizes and spacings for this are shown in the recipe below.
The tip ring is an over size tip (OST) which enables clear passage of the various knots used in joining leaders and fly lines together without getting snagged up in the process of casting.
Most fly rods are two and three piece, this one being a two piece. The very bottom of the top half of the blank is reinforced with an extra wrap of graphite in the area of the ferrule. This small section does end up with quite a bit of pressure on it while casting and fighting fish hence the strengthening.
In the case of this particular rod the last snake guide is placed on this section of reinforcing and almost right at the end of the blank section.
The two stripping guides have the very best that is available and that is the titanium framed gold Cermet ring guide from Fuji.
You can hold a handful of these guides in the palm of your hand and it pretty well feels like you have nothing in your hand.
Titanium is an ultra light, yet extremely strong material encountered in many space projects and used elsewhere in the world due to its properties. The lack of weight is extremely desirable in the construction of a quality fly rod.
The gold Cermet ring centre is the next stage in quality after the silicon guides offering a hard ultra smooth finish with the ability to dissipate heat very quickly. These guide rings are lighter and smoother than silicon carbide.
As fly lines pass through the guides quickly, the less resistance generated the better as far as the properties of a guide go. When you hook onto a fast fish we all know how quickly that fly line passes through those guides - hence the need for a ultra smooth guide that quickly dissipates heat.
The stripping guide in this case is a number 16 TI NGG followed by a number 12. Both are the titanium, gold cermet guides from Fuji.
Above the cork full well grip we have added a small folding hook keeper. These are a few dollars more than the standard U shape fixed hook keeper, as they fold down when not being used and are unobtrusive while fishing.
Another new component now available from Fuji is their SKD reel seat. This comes in three sections. The hood of the reel seat, the threaded tube section with screwing hood on it and the centre main tube section.
This centre tube section replaces the normal graphite tube of the reel seat and is made from timber. This has be machined down so that the graphite hooded and thread sections fit neatly into place where they are glued and fixed into position by the rod builder.
The timber section comes in Tasmanian oak which is a light coloured timber or rosewood which is a dark timber.
The timber section comes sealed with a type of lacquer to preserve the timber. To this we have slipped the timber section onto the lathe and turned it down a little further, added another coat of sealer then finished it off with a light coat of rod epoxy which brings the beautiful colour of the timber out and gives it a hard lustrous finish, especially the darker rosewood. It really does look a piece of work.
The hoods of the reels seat have an internal nylon hood which allow a number of various reels to sit comfortably and securely under the hoods. As the material is not corrosive you have no worries about the hoods or tube oxidising and causing damage to you expensive fly reel.
The butt section of the rod is finished off with a soft EVA butt cap. This is quite bulbous and can be quickly and easily turned down in a lathe or even a drill by using a coarse grade sand paper and then a finer one to finish it off.
This way you can turn the butt into what ever size that you like.
As with all fly rods, your bindings and epoxy over the snake guides especially should be kept to a minium. Most, as we have, opt to under and over bind the two stripper guides and add a few decorative trims for looks. The snakes guides are simply overbound.
This is up to you though and you may decide to keep the single narrow overbinds over all the guides both snakes and the gold cermets.
Which ever way you choose I am sure that you will be more than happy with this rod. It certainly makes into a beautiful fly rod that looks and performs as it should.
SPECIFICATIONS:
Blank - Pacific Composites #9 Stealth
Foregrip - Cork (full well)
Winch - Fuji SKD - 17
Butt Cap - Eva 9mm
Tip - OST 1.8mm
Guides - Snakes - 5 - 126mm
5 - 130
5 - 135
5 - 160
5 - 170
5 - 215
6 - 230
6 - 250
Strippers Fuji TI NGG 12 - 330mm from tip of bottom half
16 - 370
