Fly Fish'n With Steel

 

Fly Fish’n With Steel 

3/20/2021

 Vintage; According to most of the experts in the trade, the term “vintage” refers to an item that is at least 50-year-old, but less than 100.

  Back when I fished with me grandfather he always used an old fly rod. I never saw him use any kind of flies though. While I was using the old Zebco push button and graduated to the open face spinning reel grandpa continued to dunk worms, home made Velveeta cheese balls or salmon eggs from his True Temper fly rod. It wasn’t till I was in my early twenties that I actually got a better look at it. Mostly because a thread wrap on one of the double foot guides had unwound. We wrapped it with duct tape and grandpa used it like that. 

It was when grandpa passed away and I inherited the old rod that I realized it was made of steel and a magnet stuck to it. It is quite heavy as you can imagine. Being in the condition it is in I never dared to take it out fishing. A few years ago I came across a True Temper fly rod very similar to my grandfathers rod at a yard sale. I don’t remember what I paid for it but of course I bought it. Besides the thread wrap color the only thing different in the reel seat is the reel locking ring. They are both 8’ 5”. I’ve been wanting to take the newer vintage True Temper rod out for trout and finally took the opportunity to do so.

Grandpa’s old rod

 

The newer one I bought

 

  It was a beautiful late morning when I arrived. By then it had gotten above 40 degrees. The sky was blue with promise of a warm sunny spring day.

  I took out the True Temper rod and fitted it with my Martin Classic mc78 reel spooled with Cortand 5wt Sylk Line. With the weight of the rod I was wondering how long I’d be able to fish with it before my arm tires.

 The water level was higher than I expected but still manageable to wade in. The clarity was like looking through a dirty window for about a foot or so along the bank. The wavy current was a lot hardy to see beneath.

  I knotted on a Woolly Bugger and found it wasn’t going to be easy to roll cast the bugger with the steel wimpy rod. With brush and small trees behind me overhand casting wasn’t to my favor. I decided to nymph fish and knotted on a pair of nymphs under an indicator. It took time for me to learn how to cast this rod. It was as whippy as a buggy whip. Roll casting wasn’t easy nor could I roll cast in the usual manner bringing the rod up in front of me and rolling it out. When I tried this the rod tip actually hit the water and the line, leader and tippet went limp creating all kind of tippet tangles. Instead I had to roll cast it from my opposite side at an angle, with my index finger parallel on the cork handle, and forcing the heavy rod outward. Once I got the hang of it it wasn’t too awful. It didn’t come naturally though as I always had to pay attention on each cast.

  When the indicator went under I pulled up and back on the rod. The top half of the rod arced downward and my first hooked trout on the rod tightened the line. I got it in safely. Not a big one but It was the first trout on the steel rod.

 Well of course this called for a celebration. I reached into my vest pocket and took out a sun grown stogie, lit it up, and enjoyed my outing so far.

  

 While I enjoyed my stogie it took some time for my next catch. After the hook up bringing the trout in was interesting to say the least. With the wimpy rod it was hard to keep a good tight line especially when the fish swam towards me or passed right in front of me. I tried reeling them in quickly to keep a tight line but with the small spool I couldn’t reel the trout in fast enough. Trying to line them in was difficult to keep the line tight also. Pulling fly line down through the eyes the rod tip would flex so much that by the time I grabbed more line the tight line became flimsy enough I wasn’t sure the trout was still hooked. 

 

  There was no doubt the rod was interesting to use. I caught enough trout to keep me entertained throughout this adventure. I wonder what the other fishermen thought when they saw me roll casting the rod in an unorthodox manner let alone trying to keep a tight line on the hooked trout with the flexing rod tip and with leader dangling like a loose wire on a telephone pool in a swirling wind at times.

 

 Back at the truck I changed into driving cloth for the way home. I put the Martin reel away and put the 2 piece steel rod back in the tube. It was an enjoyable outing being I caught fish on the Vintage Steel rod.

 

 When I got home I looked up the True Temper fly rod construction and year they were made.

They were produced in the 50’s and constructed of seamless tube steel. Not sure how these guys fished with these rods all day time after time. I only fished for about 5 hours, with breaks in between, and by the end of the day I felt the fatigue in my casting arm.

 ~doubletaper