Articles

From left: the Umpqua Toketee and Swiftwater Tech vests.

Umpqua Feather Merchants, who announced today the addition of the Toketee and Swiftwater Tech Vests to its lineup of fly fishing products, wants you to know a lot about their vests' pockets -- while keeping in mind that it's not all about pockets.

"When we first started looking at fishing vest, we were shocked that it wasn't really a game about innovation; it was a contest to see who could put the most pockets on a vest," explained Jeff Fryhover, Umpqua President & CEO. "That approach simply wouldn't work for us, we wanted a vest with everything you need and nothing you don't."

According to information on the new vests provided by Umpqua, the one-size fits all Toketee Vest features cushioned shoulder straps, a supportive back panel, and several inside and outside pockets with a "unique cross-body pocket orientation" for easy accessibility. The outside of the vest includes six external pockets with internal stretch-mesh accessory pockets, eight coated web attachment loops/retractor stations, two molded barbless fly rigging stations, and tricot-lined hand pockets. The vest is also equipped with YKK zippers with loop primary pulls and micro-tectured secondary pulls, a back D-ring and web loops for net attachment.

Abel's new, hand-painted Grateful Dead 'Steal Your Face' design.

If you're a lover of premium reels and the Grateful Dead, then Abel is offering the reel for you, albeit in very limited quantity. Beginning immediately, Abel is offering the iconic Grateful Dead "Steal Your Face" logo on both its Classic Series and Super Series reels. Abel is only offering the hand painted Grateful Dead design on 250 reels, and snagging one will run you a $300 premium over the price of the same reel in plain black.

“This has been a dream of ours for over 10 years to partner with the Grateful Dead, and offer our shared loyal fans a hand painted reel that symbolizes their passion for fly fishing and the music of the Grateful Dead. We can think of no better way to mark our 25 offering a custom designed reel that celebrates the rich American heritage of both Abel Reels and the Grateful Dead,” said Jeff Patterson, Abel Director of Sales.

Echo's new fiberglass rod offering.

There's been a bit of renaissance of fiberglass rods over the last couple of years. Seeing manufacturers return to producing glass rods has come as a surprise to many, given the general market trend towards ever-faster and ever-stiffer graphite rods. According to glass aficionados, however, no other material produces the feel and deep load that a fiberglass rod does and this fact has some rod makers adding fiberglass offerings back into their lineup for the first time in decades.

Count Echo rods amongst that crowd. According to the folks at Echo, they could "no longer hold Tim back from another project he's wanted in the offering for quite some time". Tim, of course, is ECHO and Rajeff Sports founder and chief rod designer Tim Rajeff.

Allow me to help you catch bigger fish.

The skills for catching big fish [are] different and certainly more refined than the skills for catching small fish. Big fish require a more stealthy approach, fewer casts, better positioning and equipment to prevent drag, superior fish fighting skills, and really better "everything" in the presentation than do small fish. In short, they require the very best predatory skills from the angler. So the question becomes: How does one learn big fish skills when at least 95 percent of the fish are small ones?

The answer is almost too easy: pretend. No, don't spin a fisherman's yarn and tell everyone that the six, 8-inch fish you caught were twelve, 18-inchers. Rather, use the small fish as practice for the big ones. I've seen it many times: the angler spots a small fish rising, and knowing it's not a brute, makes a half-hearted (what I call a "small fish") cast. So what if the line hits the water too hard and spooks the fish, so what if the fly drags, so what if the angler was too slow to set the hook, or too fast? It's only a small one, and not of that much interest. And fighting the fish? Well it's just a matter of stripping it in and shaking it off the line.

The new Nautilus CCF-X2.

In the saltwater game, your reel is often your most important piece of gear. Saltwater fish test reels in way few of their freshwater bretheren do. The latest saltwater reel from Nautilus, one of the benchmark setters in the industry, is being well received. According to Nautilus, they have utilized the best attributes of the CCF and FWX drag system to create the new CCF-X-2 Reel Series. The CCF-X2 continues Nautilus' 180 year old tradition of creating top of the line and reliable fly fishing products for serious anglers.

The CCF-X2 recently won the Best Saltwater Reel Award at the 2013 ICAST/IFTD trade show. It features a lightweight design, and a dual action CCF disc braking system, which Nautilus claims is capable of generating more than "20 lbs of drag at less than 1% start up inertia with twice the drag surface."

Pages