Fishing The Test - A Sweet Little Hardy Fiberglass Fly Rod

A couple years ago, I spotted a sweet House of Hardy fiberglass fly rod on eBay. My buddy Jeff had sent me a link to show me some other fly rod he'd been eyeballing. I don't recall if the one he was after was fiberglass or bamboo, but what I do recall is my reaction to this lovely deep-green Hardy fiberglass rod that showed up in the "other options" portion of the page.

It was new, but that didn't take away much of the appeal for me. It was a Hardy, and it looked the part. Just as impressive as the perfectly detailed rod were the accouterments: a matte green rod tube with a real cork plug, a sleeve to protect the rod tube (really), a shiny ferrule plug, and a sleeve for the rod itself. All with the fetching House of Hardy mark. I was smitten.

I had to point the rod out to Jeff. In the spirit of sharing, you know. I wasn't actually expecting him to buy it, but I wasn't surprised either when he told me it was on its way to his house. I'd have been jealous, but I knew the only way I was going to enjoy that fly rod was vicariously.

The rod is called "The Test." It's a perfect small-stream number -- a 7.5-foot, 4-weight, with a cork reel seat.

Some time later, Jeff informed me that he'd (somehow) stumbled on another Hardy fiberglass rod -- this one an 8-foot, 5-weight called "The Trout Fisher." He went on a bit about how it was going to be hard for him to decide which one of the rods to fish on his favorite stream. I was thinking (and may have mentioned) that we should fish them side-by-side sometime. 

We finally got around to doing just that. We planned a couple days on Southeast Minnesota streams in early September with fishing the Hardys as a focal point. The weather seemed to have something different in mind, however. After nervously watching the rainfall totals, river gauges and forecasts for a good week before the brief excursion, we scaled the trip back to a one-day adventure. We hoped the smallest of streams, at least, would be fishable. And hoped that even if it was sketchy, it would be good to get out. As it turned out, there was plenty of fishable water.

Our first stop was at a favorite stretch of the South Branch of the Root River -- a roll of the dice -- where we hoped for a decent flow and a good trico hatch. The river was up, as we expected, and we knew it wouldn't fish well. We hopped back in the truck and headed a fair piece upstream. Our guess was better this time. In the river's upper reaches, the water clarity was good, and we could see rises from the bridge. Though this is skinny water upstream from Forestville State Park, it offered good space for casting, so at the very least we could air out the rods.

It turns out that the casting was excellent, but the catching left something to be desired. I fished The Test, and Jeff, The Trout Fisher. (I'd done some lobbying in advance.) In a couple hours, we tried a range of nymphs and dries, but nothing seemed to click. It appeared that we'd missed an early trico hatch (or so said the streamside spiderwebs), and the tiny blue-winged olives were spotty. 

The rises were few, mostly confined to flat water, and brought only refusals. Nymphs didn't do any better. We appeared to have neatly tucked ourselves between hatches. It wasn't until we decided to move on to another stream that Jeff picked up a couple on nymphs while fishing back to the truck.

I did get to drop a few casts with dries in front of a riser in a braided current, which I thought might give me a shot. It was a nice idea. I don't believe I had ever cast a smoother rod. The Test has a slowish, smooth action that let me put delicate casts right in that trout's feeding lane. For once, my presentation wasn't the problem.

But this fish was perfectly placed behind a sunken branch, making it nearly impossible to get the right drift. After too many casts, I got a refusal and gave up on him. I started casting to a spot a few feet away that looked suspicious, but by then I was just casting, so when the fish hit, I fumbled the hook set and missed it. He felt it, and that was that. It was tough to miss like that on a day that was by all indications going to be a slow one.   

Our next stop, even smaller water, put us in front of a few more rising trout. I picked up a couple brown trout on a size 18 BWO and missed a few others. We caught a few, and that seemed like a victory. When we'd fished the stretch we wanted, we moved back to the Root, in the park, to hit a couple last spots before hitting the road. 

After picking up a few trout and watching me miss some (almost as fun), Jeff caught a nice fish and called it a good one to end on. I was fishing just upstream and started to feel pressure to catch a decent fish to end on, too.

About to give up on that spot, I suddenly felt a fish. Barely. I was sure it was a small one, until it stopped moving toward me and instead put its nose to the bottom of the river looking for a sunken log. This was a real fish. And it bent the Hardy Test way into the butt. 

There was enough behind this rod to keep the trout away from the log and keep it from running. We measured the fish at about 16 3/4 inches. Jeff put the tape to it, so I had a real measurement and a witness. That's a good fish for these waters, and I was able to get past the thought that there might be more in that drop-off, and we called it. 

A good fish to end the day can turn an otherwise uneventful outing into a great day on the water. And this one gave me a chance to put The Test to the test. I may need just one more day with it, however, just to be sure.  

(Not Quite) Putting the Sage Bluegill Rod Through the Paces

I have a go-to fly rod for smallmouth bass fishing that generally relieves me of any fears of covetousness. It's an old Fenwick Feralite fiberglass rod, 8-foot for 7-weight line. It casts nicely, has the slow action that I love, but isn't noodley like many fiberglass rods. It also has a nice brown color that glows when the sun hits it just right. It's right in my sweet spot -- plenty good, but nothing fancy, and likely enough to get strange looks from other anglers. But my cousin Jeff has this Sage Bluegill rod from its Bass series that gives me the urges.

I'd worked it out with Jeff that on a recent outing, Aug. 25 in northern Wisconsin, I'd give the Bluegill a whirl.

It's a sight to behold, with a gold-green hue that Sage calls Treefrog, because that apparently sounds a lot cooler than gold-green. It comes in at 7-feet 11-inches, which is designed to make it legit for bass tournaments. That fact took a little of the high-gloss sheen off the thing for me, but I am a sucker for odd-sized rods even still. I have an old Abbey & Imbrie glass rod that is clearly marked as 6 2/3 foot, which is probably the main reason I bought (and keep) the rod.    

I planned to fish the Bluegill, catch many large (smallmouth) bass, and live to tell about it. There was just one flaw to my plan. I was floating down the river with my teenage son, and fatherly instincts would kick in, meaning I'd spend all my energy putting him in casting position and only make a few casts myself, on the odd occasions where we anchored or got out to wade fish a bit. That didn't lessen my enjoyment in the least, but it meant this would amount to a brief test drive rather than a day of full-on casting and, ideally, catching. 

When I did get a chance to cast -- whether seated in the canoe or standing in the river -- I can say I was more than impressed with how the Bluegill performed. These rods are built to eliminate the need for false casting in many circumstances, and false casting or not, I could easily throw 50 feet of line without working at it. A better caster on a bigger river would scoff at those casts, but it was all I needed on this water, and with my casting prowess, it's probably pretty close to my limit on any rod anyway.

I like the fact that while it's often not necessary to false cast, it's easy enough to do when you need to. Or when old habits kick in. Sage bills these rods as fast action, but I found that my casting improved when I slowed down my pace a bit. (Not surprising.) I guess I'd call the Bluegill's action medium-fast. That probably makes sense as the lightest rod in Sage's Bass II series. It weighs in at 3 3/8 ounces. As all rods in the series do, it comes with a line built for the rod. This one comes with a 230-grain Sage Bass II Taper line. My guess is that translates to about a 7-weight, although I didn’t do the research.

I was casting a size 8 black wooly bugger with green flashback, my go-to fly on these waters. The rod chucked the bugger easily. Later, I'd try a size 4 swimming deer hair frog, since my friend Eric, in another canoe fishing (Jeff's) Sage Smallmouth rod, was doing quite well on the frog. The deer hair frog was castable with the Bluegill, but the Smallmouth rod appeared to handle it much better. As Eric reminded me at several points throughout the day, it sure would have been nice to be able to switch between the Smallmouth strung up with a frog and the Bluegill, with a wooly bugger. I think he meant it would be nice for him, but I wasn't budging.

The first smallie I hooked up with was, in fact, small -- maybe 10 inches. It felt like a much bigger fish. The rod seemed to transfer every bit of that fish's fight to the full-wells grip and fighting butt. The rod obviously has a lot more than was necessary for that little guy, but the quick contest telegraphed the fact that a bigger fish would be amazing on this rod. Unfortunately, I wasn't the guy catching the big ones on this day, fishing mostly after each spot had been fairly pounded by three other anglers. The biggest fish I hooked up with went around 13 inches and was a riot.

The brief test drive left me with a great first impression of the rod. And it left me making plans to give it a better workout in the near future. But with a price tag north of $500, I'll have to stick to stealing the Bluegill from Jeff's arsenal.  

Slumming for Trout

My first fly rod was a Pfleuger Medalist, 8-foot for 5/6 line. I couldn't have been happier with the thing. It took me a while to adjust to the price points of fly-fishing, since my previous fishing rods were Abu Garcias from the bulk bin at the local Fleet Farm. Going from $5 (okay, I wasn’t much of a fisherman) to somewhere north of $50 was tough, and that was just to get the cheapest fly rod I could find. Still, the Pfleuger Medalist suited me, and when I accidentally broke it several years and a (smallish) number of fly rods later, it hurt. I still have that fly rod tucked away somewhere, for reasons I can't fully explain. 

In my 20-some years of fly-fishing, I've looked with admiration at fancy rods and reels, and even fished what seemed at the time like a fairly nice bamboo rod my cousin and fishing partner, Jeff Finnamore, kept trying to give me. But for me, bamboo seemed complicated, and there was something unsettling about fishing a rod I was afraid I might break. I returned the rod to him unscathed and barely fished, and returned to the Pfleuger. (And to pronouncing the "P" for effect.)  

While other fly anglers progress to bamboo or high-end graphite rods as they get farther into the sport and deeper into their checkbooks, I've tended toward tools of the trade that I enjoy well enough but are more workman-like. First, lower-end graphite, then fiberglass, which for me has much of the romance as bamboo without the price tag or the upkeep. 

I recently came upon a 7 1/2-foot Heddon Pal Standard. The name called to me. The Standard. Not the Presidential or the Aristocrat. Just the Standard. Perfect. No-nonsense. And it's fiberglass, which puts it safely in the "Why do you fish that?" category. 

My fishing fits nicely with that theme, too. Fair to middling fishing on respectable but not glamorous trout streams in Minnesota. (And Wisconsin, if push comes to shove.) It can be great fishing, but not the kind you'd see on any of the outdoor TV channels. I have nothing against great fishing. I've been on a quest for big trout in Montana. I've toyed visiting other famous trout country. But when it comes right down to it, I prefer the uncrowded and relatively uncomplicated rivers of my home state and our eastern neighbor, where for reasons unknown, my fishing license lists me as Hoyt J. Flanaman. 

A really great fish can make you stop and catch your breath for a minute. As can a gorgeous freestone stream in the mountains. But I'll take a Southeast Minnesota river valley and a 12-inch trout on an Adams any day of the week. Slumming for trout suits me.