Random fishing...

I planned to get on the water at the crack of dawn thinking I would be off early. Well, I was there early but you know how goes for getting off on time. 11 hours later I pulled away from the ramp. I could have fished a little longer if they weren't going to lock me in..Time flys by and gets away from me when i'm fishing. My wife learned that really early on and doesn't go often. My close fishing friends know that and plan on it. Some fishing partners just didn't have the drive to do it, and we dont fish often. Don't tell me you have dinner plans at 6 after we've launched becouse your probably not making those plans unless you fdrove your self.  I just can't get enough and can not wait till the next day. The fishing on this day ws steady. Lots of small fish in the 18-20" class with a couple of decent fish here and there to keep it interesting. All in all a nice day on the water.

I almost never plug gear on my blog. There are tons of gear reviews on just about every site these days days. I can't and don't spend 700-900 bucks on fly rods.  I'm way to rough on my gear to be dropping that kind of coin.  I will spend the money on reels but rods just dont have the life a reel does. 350 is my cap and thats still a lot of money. I have been eye balling one company for a while and was looking forward to seeing there rods and reels at the show. Praticularly the Xa 8wt from Allen Fly Fishing. I picked one up and it felt nice. All the hardware looked more than satisfactory and the finish was very clean. Nice cork and it didn't look like they cut corners. Thought about it for a minute and decided to make the purchase. I cast that rod for 8 hours with 28ft of T14 and large flies the next day and was really impressed with the crisp load and feel of it right out of the gate.  My conclusion is there are still good deals in fly fishing gear and it was worth every penny.  I'll see how it holds up on some tougher fishing soon but my first impressions were very good. If your looking for a rod in the 250.00 dollar range I really recommend you cast one for your self.