Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Fun With Featherlights...And Snakes

Longtime T.F.M. readers all know that I am a big fan of the Eagle Claw Featherlight fly rods.  My first fly rod was a 7' Featherlight so there is the nostalgia of it, but it's damn tough to find a better bang for your buck than one of these bright yellow sticks.  They might not compare to your favorite glass fly rod costing ten to twenty times more but for $30 you can fish the hell out of it without a worry.

Jay and Kelly of The Naturalist's Angle have been posting up some excellent fish with Featherlight images on their blog lately and I thought I'd share a few of my favorites along with a bit of background of why they enjoy fishing these gaudy yellow sticks so much.


Jay wrote...  "I can go ahead and say that the reason we've been using the Featherlights lately is that we started fishing this tiny little creek in Birmingham (Shades Creek) and there's very little casting room.  The older of the two Featherlight fly rods that I have is from 1996 or 97, and it's a 6'6" five weight.  I used it a bunch in the Smokies when I lived in Knoxville from 2001 to 2004.  It's seen a lot of fish and it still has a lot of life left in it.  The clear coat/epoxy on the guide wraps are beginning to crack, but considering I paid approximately twenty bucks for it fifteen years ago I would say I've gotten my monies worth.  The other Featherlight is the newer model 8' 5/6 wt (though I think it's too heavy for five weight fly line) that Kelly has been using with her six weight line/reel that usually lives on her 9' six weight TFO Kreh Professional.  I suggested she use it because it was a bit shorter than her nine footer.  For whatever reason, she decided to keep using it on the Cahaba River which is bigger water and she landed her big spotted bass on Earth Day.  It handled that fish very well."






Oh yeah...and they both like playing with snakes too.  Not my thing but I especially enjoyed Jay's through primer which outlines what to consider when you come across a snake in the water or in the woods. 



Add The Naturalist's Angle to your RSS feed for all things Featherlight's, fish, and snakes too.

3 comments:

El Rakeman said...

The snake primer link is excellent, given that our snakes here in SC should be out and about now...that being said, however, I'd prefer not to get close enough to ID a snake unless it's DRT or in a cage.

Anonymous said...

this is awesome i for sure will be following their blog. i live in alabama and love snakes

Jay said...

Thanks for the highlight, Cameron.
I should mention that the yellow stick visible in the kayak pic is actually my Featherlight spinning rod. I only cast it a few times that day on Smith Lake. Fly fishing is just more fun than spinning, but if you must own a spinning rod... it should definitely be a Featherlight.