With our morning's "work" done at the Livingston Rod Company shop, Dusty Smith and I piled our gear into the backseat of his pickup truck and headed east out of Bozeman to spend the afternoon on some water that he figured would be good. It was early October, overcast with spits of rain, and we were sure that we'd see a few blue winged olives that would in turn, bring up a few trout to the surface.
Well, sometimes everything can be perfect and it still doesn't happen as expected. We saw very few bugs and a couple of rises but nothing consistent to really get it going. We covered quite a bit of water, some of it looking real good too, but it stayed tough. We caught a couple of trout that we worked hard for and walked back to the truck in the rain.
We had a good time and the highlight to end our afternoon was taking a few back roads into to Bozeman passing through the foothills awash in fall yellows with a spike of orange here and there.
A couple of gear notes for the day to highlight each of our fly rod outfits...
KABUTO RODS 8053 - As I was assembling gear for this trip, one of the toughest decisions was figuring out which 5-weight I would carry along. I needed something versatile with power and finally settled on the Kabuto Rods 8' 5-weight. I don't get to fish this fly rod and was reminded again just how stunning they look with the dark yellow blank matched with blued hardware and the stacked bamboo reel seat. Yasuyuki Kabuto sure knows what he's doing with this one.
I matched this fly rod with the latest Orvis C.F.O. III that was lined with the Scientific Anglers Amplitude Textured Infinity, which was a great all-purpose taper choice.
LIVINGSTON ROD COMPANY WESTERN GLASS SERIES 8653 - Dusty went with his tried and true 8'6" 5-weight and there might not be a better choice for an all-around western waters fly rod in glass out there unless you went up a line weight with his 6-weight.
I took a demo of this fly rod to Wyoming a few years back and you can read my notes HERE and HERE. I mentioned it in the last post and I'll say it again, this fly rod is on my "To Get" list. If you spend any time out west, it should be on yours too.
Dusty had this outfit paired with an old Hardy clicker lined with a 406 Fly Lines double taper. Dusty recommends this line as a match with this fly rods and for good reason. They are a heck of a great fly line with glass, made in the Scientific Anglers factory, and priced right too.
Dusty, thanks for a great day. I hope we are able to do it again sometime.
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