Switching It Up With A Good Friend

It was time to take the new switch rod to the water and also take my buddy Martin out and let him whip the water into a frenzy with the 13 foot 7 weight two handed rod. I had Friday late afternoon free to get acquainted with the new 4 weight switch and fish the Canandaigua Outlet near Junius, NY. I had been there the previous week with my oldest daughter and we did pretty good with small bass and fallfish. I had high expectations for some great bass action, but that never really happened. I have to say though the four fallfish I caught were the biggest I've landed all in the 10-13 inch range. These are a blast to catch on the surface because they usually don't hesitate and just react. Mission one accomplished: get the feel of the rod and a few fish to boot.
Early Saturday morning after staying up too late tying and watching Skagit Master Volume I, I dragged myself out of bed and picked Martin up and headed to the Salmon River which had bumped the flow to 750 cfs for a summer rafting water release. 750 cfs is usually very nice to fish for steelhead, but I was worried about that flow and a 4 weight switch rod. It turned out be very nice actually, considering I was only targeting fallfish and bass and trying to show Martin the basics. We headed up to the Compactor Pool and I took the 7 weight and was explaining a few things to Martin and letting the fly swing across the current, when on the third swing the line tightened and I soon had a small bass at hand. I continued to explain more, when I missed a fish and then landed a fallfish. That was enough, I handed the rod to Martin and said "here, just do what you can for now" and get to feel the tug drug. It wasn't long and Martin was feeling the jolt in the rod as well. I jumped in with the switch and we were soon having a blast. I soon noticed that Martin had connected with a fish and was soon landing his first fish on a spey rod, a nice little smallie!! This was more than I was expecting out of the day and we were merely 40 minutes into it. After things settled down a bit, we worked on casting a bit more and getting use to the feel. We continued fishing down hitting a few fallfish here and there and just enjoying a great day on the water together....therapy if you will. Mission accomplished. By the end of the morning I was really liking the switch and feeling comfortable with it.....so much so that when I landed a small brown trout, I never thought twice about getting a picture of my first trout on the switch until after I released it. It's safe to say I'm very comfortable with it. Martin also shot a couple of short videos of me casting, boy do I need some more practice/therapy. We polished off a couple of sausage sandwiches and an IPA or two to wash them down. We both agreed that we need to do this more often.
First Fish on the 4wt

 Martin Letting it ride

 Martin's first fish on the two hander