Still Winter... and a new gadget

Yesterday I spent a beautiful day on the South Platte fishing with my tenkara buddies Graham of Tenkara Grasshopper and Jason of Tenkara Talk. The fishing was great, the catching not so much. In fact, we all got only one or two nibbles and neither of us could actually hook-up with a trout. Just another typical day of Winter fishing (for me). However, the company was quite excellent.

It is still Winter here on the Front Range, although yesterday was one of those days that signaled that Spring is just around the corner. The daytime temperature was in the high 50ies but the water was still pretty frigid at around 39-40F.

Graham working some good looking water

Graham still smiling despite no trout

Jason watching the end of line intently

I started out with my adaptation of Pat's Rubberlegs in size 10 (yes, not a tenkara fly) but lost it soon along other flies, such as a what was my try at a brown/golden stonefly sakasa kebari, to the elusive rock bottom trout (it must have been a huge one!).

Pat's Rubberlegs

BH Golden Stone Sakasa Kebari

The wind made things a bit challenging at times, the occasional wind gust tugged at the line lifting the entire rig out of the water. However, the heavy 14ft hand-tied line of Tenkarabum performed quite nicely on the Ito. I also wanted to finally fish with my Tenkara USA Ebisu, but unfortunately I did not remember I had it with me until late in the day when we started wrapping-up things. I am getting old. Maybe next time.

One thing that I got to test was a new line spool I received this week from Japan, Jason has a friend who was kind enough to order and send us a batch of Oni Tenkara line spools. In anticipation of trying the spools I removed my current line management system of choice, the Fuji Hook Keepers. The spool is made of fairly hard foam with a plastic "crown" featuring notches where you can place the fly (although Jason prefers to place his fly in the slit of the foam). In any case, the spool, at 65mm diameter is a valid alternative to the Fuji Hook Keepers, although the Fuji Hook Keeper is still my favorite for immediate line storage while moving around on stream because you can wind your line faster and you can store the rod in the Ebira. But the spool definitively looks much cooler. And it's harder to come by, so it's somewhat special.

I will soon have a giveaway for a few spools, so please stay tuned.

River Statistics:
Weather: sunny, some wind gusts
Air Temp: in the mid/high 50ies
Flow: 285cfs, discoloration of water due to some run-off and increased flow/release from Cheesman Reservoir. 
Day on the water in 2012: 3
Fish: 0