The Ultimate Small Rod

(Update July 26, 2010)

I have now used the Dorber eRod "L'il Streamer" in the following situations: Medium-sized trout stream (Woodland Valley Creek, Phoenicia, N.Y.); big river, albeit with fairly low flows (the Esopus Creek in Phoenicia, Mt. Tremper and Boiceville, N.Y.); warm-water lake (South Pond, Mt. Riga, Salisbury, Conn.) and squirrelly mountain trout stream (Wachocastinook Brook in Salisbury and the upper stretch of the fly-fishing only section of Woodland Valley Creek).

• With a pretty good wind shooting downstream on the Esopus the rod's length worked against it to some degree, but in fairness casting with a strong head wind (or tail wind, for that matter) is tricky with any rod.
• The rod turns over heavier flies without any problems (I am using a double tapered line). After some experimentation with leader length I just said the hell with it and went ahead with a seven and a half footer, adding tippet as necessary.
• With tandem rigs the rod's super=shooter action resulted in a couple of lost flies that just got sling-shotted off into the unknown. (Doesn't say much for my knots.)
• With putty weight added the rod behaved like any other.
• As a bonus, because the rod is so short, a medium-sized trout, like the foot-long rainbow I took last night, will actually strip line off the reel.

In all these different contexts I continued to be almost unconscious of the short length of the rod.

Fishing with the L'il Streamer in Woodland Valley from the catcher's crouch. Note — even with a camera set to take a picture every 30 seconds you'd be amazed how hard it is to actually get one of a cast.)

The short rod. A nine-footer would tower over the car. I have the cork and ring configuration; they also offer an adjustable reel mount handle for about 10 bucks extra.

Note the first oversized guide. Looks like a spinning rod. Almost.

Not the greatest photo but the oversize guides are visible.

Original post




I bought a five and a half foot, two-piece rod for a five weight line from an outfit called the Global Dorber Group.

Yes, it sounds like some sort of shady investment thing, or a sinister think tank funded by George Soros.

But they make fishing rods. Good ones. Inexpensive ones. I have an eight-foot, two-piece five weight from them with a very slow action that I've been happy with.

This recent rod is from a line called the "L'il Streamer." The promotional copy says it was invented by a guy in Arkansas name of Bob Brunsell, who came up with the idea of a rod with oversized guides that are closer together.

The result is a rod that is so easy to cast that after a half hour or so I was almost completely unconscious of the fact I was using this little dinky rod.

I used a double-tapered line. I don't think the rod would work as well with a weight forward (see Brunsell's article, linked below).

I'd like the action to be just a little slower, for bow-and-arrow casting. But that is a quibble. A-




http://www.dorber.com/flyrods.html

Here is a link to the story of the development of the rod, by Bob Brunsell:

http://www.dorber.com/E1.html

Fishing with the Coach

After years of trying to teach people to fly-fish I have boiled it down to one sentence: "Too much line!"

But when Housatonic Valley Regional High School head football coach Deron Bayer came up the mountain for a little bass fishing, with a much better-than-average cast, all he required was a little coaching — mostly of the "chuck it over there and see what happens" variety.

July 4 grab bag

Fishing the Riga brook — and attempting to capture (with snapshots) the sensation of clambering up a boulder in the hope of a nice plunge pool ahead.

Among the things I inherited from my late brother Brendan are three boxes of fireworks — the real kind, purchased in a free state like North Carolina. It's been a few years, but they were stored dry and so I had my own little fireworks show in Phoenicia, N.Y.

More rock arrangements. Tony V. says they are half-assed versions of Native American hunting signs, and I don't doubt it.

Although this little one seems to be in the Cambodian school - Angkor What?

Friday morning: I was on the Esopus, moving downstream toward a hole called "The Greeny Deep," where I once caught a 24-inch rainbow on a dry fly. (First photo shows - from upstream - the massive boulder that forms the pool.)

This bird was on the opposite bank moving upstream. I watched as he put on a nymphing clinic, flipping his fly into the rapid to the left of the boulder (second photo) and dead drifting it as far as practical.

But he didn't ignore the possibilities of the swing, either — which is where he got his hit.

Textbook subsurface fishing. Catch and release with a minimum of fuss.My only quibble is the use of a strike indicator, which I find cheesy.

And say hello to Harry Heron and The Ducks.

And the big stoneflies are finally moving on the Esopus, as indicated by casings on the rock. The stonefly, a big, clumsy critter, crawls along the streambed and if it gets that far, clambers out on a handy rock, where it hatches into an equally clumsy flying critter. The stonefly is like a cheeseburger platter for trout. One gulp and they're set for a while.