Saturday was a pretty fishy day, but happened to involve no actual fishing.
Woke up and watched my Saturday morning YouTube. It’s my adult version of Saturday morning cartoons, just with less Smurfs. This week’s video choice was the latest from Wild Fly, an awesome float down the Mississippi River in Minnesota with some epic smallmouth bass eats. If you’re into that sort of stuff, it’s a must watch.
Then I wrote a few blog posts, this one you’re reading now, and then two for Tenkara Angler. At least one of the latter will publish this week, a rod review of what I’m calling a “mystery rod”, so some fixed line intrigue awaits. Check out that wooden grip though. Sexy as f*ck.
Finally, I spent the late afternoon and evening putting backing and fly line on the new (to me) reels I’ve accumulated over this winter. Being in tenkara mode for so long, I haven’t really had to tie an Arbor or Albright knot in a hot minute, so it was interestingly awkward digging those skills out of mothballs. (Another visit to YouTube was a great help.) While I was at it, I also converted the two vintage clickers to left hand retrieve because that’s how I roll. The pawls were easy enough to flip around, but I also had to unscrew and flip around the metal line guards on each too.
The Berkley 530 got a little bit of backing, a Cortland 444 Sylk line, and a small stream furled leader. This is just about perfect in every way. I’m in love. Get me to the Smokies asap.
The Scientific Anglers System 4 is going to be a longer term reclamation project. It had to have all its line stripped out, then rewound in the other direction now that it’s in the left hand retrieve position. I’m not sure how old the line on it is, but it made for a heap of messy and tight coils. I’m going to need to see if there’s a way to loosen those up, or maybe just replace the line. If I do that, I’m going to end up giving it a good deep clean and lube, just like I did the Berkley.
Finally, the Taylor Elemnt got some Moonlit performance taper line and is ready to rip. I’m going to pair it with the Moonlit Lunar S2 Fiberglass rod. The red and green certainly make for some festive colors. This will definitely be known as the “Christmas combo.” Instead of screaming Fish On upon hookup, I anticipate letting out a ¡Feliz Navidad!
As for what Sunday will bring… Who knows? Maybe a run through of the rest of my gear like fly boxes and packs. If it weren’t for the recent “cold” snap here in Florida, I’d probably have one of these reels out on the water. Who knows, might still do it anyway, even if the fish are bound to be sluggish.