Recommendations for a 4 piece fly rod for small rivers

[Pine Marten]

Hello everyone.

I need a bit of help because I haven't bought a fly rod for over 20 years when I bought a really beautiful Hardy Sovereign 8ft6 two piece rod that I still use as it just has a few scratches. Back then, graphite rods were newish and expensive, but now that's tried, tested and generic technology. So I would expect new rods of a similar quality to my current one to be available for a lot cheaper. In a couple of weeks I'll be heading off to France for a couple of weeks and will be staying five minutes walk away from this stretch of river:

Google Maps

As you can see, it's a shallow, quite fast-flowing mountain stream just starting to slow down at this stage (I've fished the same stream about 10km upstream a lot back in the day, but not this part) and it's essentially under a canopy of foliage pretty much all the way. To me it says that a very delicate approach is needed, short upstream casts with floating line, probably a lot of flies left up the trees. Alternately, ultra-light spinning tackle or even just a worm on a hook with a split shot on the line, but in my experience that leads often to deep hooking of juvenile fish and I want to avoid that.

I can't easily bring the old Hardy as it breaks down into too cumbersome a package for this trip, in a small car laden with baby gear and everything else. So if I want to take fly gear in addition to my travel spinning rod, I'll need something that breaks down into four sections.

Now a perusal of eBay shows that I could pay anything from £20-30 for a Shakespeare offering to hundreds of pounds for the usual Hardy or Loomis equivalents. I don't want to go up there since this is a rod that will be used very seldom. So my question is really whether these days, there's any noticeable technical difference between for instance this Shakespeare, or this one from Grey's of Alnwick.

Thanks!

 

[caz518]

Hi PM

I use an Orvis Frequent Flyer that I bought of here, it's a great rod and packs into a small case that's easy to take anywhere. If you could find one secondhand would be a good deal otherwise they are about £200 new.

They had them on sale at some point on the below link but think they are out of stock now

Travel Fishing Rods / Frequent Flyer 6-weight 9' 7-piece Fly Rod -- Orvis UK


cheers
Dom

 

[Frank Homes]

PM

I've just bought a Shakespeare 4 weight (less than £40) for fishing small chalk streams and i find it perfectly adequate. For the type of casting you're likely to need i don't think you need to spend fortunes.

F

 

[Krico308]

I have one of the six foot shakespeare agility 'rise' rods for small stream work. It is very good and well rated on the fishing blogs and is a lot of rod for about £30. The Shakespeare Agility and Agility Rise series are good rods and well made and repesent incredible value for money. By the way, Shakespeare now own Hardy!

 

[Pine Marten]

I thought that may be the case, it can't be that hard these days to make a decent fly rod, this isn't for eXtreme conditions or anything. Now I need to check what weight my line is, I can't remember, but I think it's a #5, just so that I can make sure that I don't need a full new set of reels spools and lines.

 

[willie_gunn]

PM

Do you want to borrow a rod? I have a 5-piece 9' 6 weight Scott up in the garage that I can bring tomorrow if you're interested?

Dom

Edit: Looking at that river I also have a 6' two-piece Hardy!

 

[Pine Marten]

Thanks very much for the offer Dom, but I'm going to be OK, turns out my Kiwi friend is going to lend me his ludicrously expensive travel Loomis setup when he comes round next week, so it would seem that I'm sorted.

That said, it remains something to look into for the future.

 

[willie_gunn]

Thanks very much for the offer Dom, but I'm going to be OK, turns out my Kiwi friend is going to lend me his ludicrously expensive travel Loomis setup when he comes round next week, so it would seem that I'm sorted.

That said, it remains something to look into for the future.

PM

No worries - the offer stands should you want to slum it with a Scott instead

 

[Pine Marten]

PM

No worries - the offer stands should you want to slum it with a Scott instead

You know what one of the ironies of this is? I caught my first fish in the upper reaches of that river aged not quite four, squatting on a big flat rock, with a rod made of a length of hazel, a piece of line and a hook on the end, the sort of thing that garden gnomes use. And now I think that I need half a grand's worth of kit to do the same thing!

 

[willie_gunn]

You know what one of the ironies of this is? I caught my first fish in the upper reaches of that river aged not quite four, squatting on a big flat rock, with a rod made of a length of hazel, a piece of line and a hook on the end, the sort of thing that garden gnomes use. And now I think that I need half a grand's worth of kit to do the same thing!

Most fishing tackle is made to catch anglers, not fish

 

[Pine Marten]

Most fishing tackle is made to catch anglers, not fish

Luckily, I run faster than my friend so it caught him first!

See you tomorrow morning, I look forward to catching up, maybe planning a foray after munties!

 

[bewsher500]

I grew up on shakespeare rods and they do the job
but IMO the Grey's range are much nicer rods, better fittings and materials

I have a number of both but I have a 9ft #4 4 piece Greys Streamflex which I really like
think it is this one
Greys 4 Piece XF2 Streamflex Fly Rod - 9ft | Uttings.co.uk

it will be coming with me to Canada in 2 weeks time!

 

[Oh6]

I use an Orvis Frequent Flyer that I bought of here, it's a great rod and packs into a small case that's easy to take anywhere. If you could find one secondhand would be a good deal otherwise they are about £200 new.

They had them on sale at some point on the below link but think they are out of stock now

Travel Fishing Rods / Frequent Flyer 6-weight 9' 7-piece Fly Rod -- Orvis UK

They used to do an 8ft 4 weight, that was a cracking rod if you could find a second-hand one.

I have the 8ft 6in 5 weight which is again great to use.

 

[JabaliHunter]

Save TXL-F for a shorter light line rod
Otherwise the Hardy Zenith Sintrix rods are 50% off now and there is a 8' #4

 

[biffo]

Hardy smuggler

 

[Mungo]

Shakespeare will do all you need it to. I've spent far too much time and money obsessing about small stream fly rods (I have a 1wt, three 2wts, three 3wts and two 4wts, many by top names). There is a small difference between, say, a Shaky and a Sage - but really so small as to not even begin to justify the price difference. Especially if you don't fish all that often, and don't need to cast much more than a 2-3 rod lenghts, there is no reason to spend a lot.

Far and away the best value 'mid range' river/stream rods (as I think has already been said) are the Greys Streamflex rods. They are still over pirced for what they are, but they are easily as good as rods costing 2-3 times as much. If you can find a second hand one of those, take it (John Norris have a good second hand rod list on thier website that gets updated in close to real time).

Bear in mind that almost all small stream 'casting' is really just roll casting or lobbing - or even dapping with no fly line out at all, often to sighted fish you've crawled into. You do not need a casting maching, and a soft actioned rod is imperative because you'll often be using very light tippets. That actually means that old glass fibre rods are often ideal.

And be careful - small stream fly fishing is utterly addictive. Stalking is for dilettantes by comparison. If you're not already map obsessed, you soon will be - searching out all the little forgotten burns. The biggest wild brown trout I've ever caught (4lb +) came out of a tiny, overgrown and forgotten lode in South Lincolnshire that I found after a few evenings with an OS map and Google Earth.

 

[User00001]

I have a little Shimano Exage telescopic spinning rod that I bought on a whim and have never really used in anger.

I was doing a bit of flycasting on the village green with a friend who is a Ghillie and we decided to bung a fly reel and line on the spinning rod.

It worked very well for casting, obviously I have no experience of what it would be like to play a fish on it but but then I've got very little experience of that with any rod!

 

[Southern]

Shakespeare will do all you need it to. I've spent far too much time and money obsessing about small stream fly rods (I have a 1wt, three 2wts, three 3wts and two 4wts, many by top names). There is a small difference between, say, a Shaky and a Sage - but really so small as to not even begin to justify the price difference. Especially if you don't fish all that often, and don't need to cast much more than a 2-3 rod lenghts, there is no reason to spend a lot.

Far and away the best value 'mid range' river/stream rods (as I think has already been said) are the Greys Streamflex rods. They are still over pirced for what they are, but they are easily as good as rods costing 2-3 times as much. If you can find a second hand one of those, take it (John Norris have a good second hand rod list on thier website that gets updated in close to real time).

Bear in mind that almost all small stream 'casting' is really just roll casting or lobbing - or even dapping with no fly line out at all, often to sighted fish you've crawled into. You do not need a casting maching, and a soft actioned rod is imperative because you'll often be using very light tippets. That actually means that old glass fibre rods are often ideal.

And be careful - small stream fly fishing is utterly addictive. Stalking is for dilettantes by comparison. If you're not already map obsessed, you soon will be - searching out all the little forgotten burns. The biggest wild brown trout I've ever caught (4lb +) came out of a tiny, overgrown and forgotten lode in South Lincolnshire that I found after a few evenings with an OS map and Google Earth.

Glad to see you telling the truth: no need to spend a fortune to cast 30 feet.
... not just because I live near the hometown of Shakespeare, pioneers of fiberglass and carbon rods. I still fish with my 1964 Wonder Rod, and caught my largest largemouth bass (12 and 13 lbs) on it.

People do not realize that Shakespeare made ( and still makes ) lots of equipment of other brands, including some premium brands. And they make some Ugly Stik fly rods, with soft tips and a lot of backbone, so they will cast a big fly ( 6 inch streamer ) for things like striped bass in rivers and redfish in saltwater marshes.

 

[limulus]

Did you get sorted PM?

 

[Pine Marten]

Did you get sorted PM?

Yes thanks Limulus. For this particular trip, a friend is lending me his travel Loomis setup, so I don't need to buy a rod just now. However I will revisit this. Maybe have a word with Father Christmas. I'm going to need to ask further questions about fishing in another thread shortly.