Repairing The Rodfather Bombadeer To V2 ~ Lighter, Slower, And Greener 26Oct24

I biffed on a downed tree in the flood plain of the Gunny and snapped the Bombadeer base section. Grrr... that required me to redo a handle and reel seat and fixed fighting butt. I tried to heat the epoxy and pull off parts but stuff started to burn before the epoxy softened enough. Anyway, I replicated the handle and fixed butt design but went to a decent "spare" aluminum seat with died green maple insert which matches the variegated wraps a bit better. The new butt section is actually mated from a "non-Native" MHX blank set which matched fine to the Native MHX other sections. Measuring the new rod shows it's a skosh slower at 64° AA (v 68°), even lighter at 3.3oz (v 3.5oz), still ultralight in the hand with a consistent 5.5oz swingweight, and a little more powerful with an ERN of 4.8. I am very pleased with the low cost repair and will field trial the Bombadeer v2 soon. MHX has been great with the warranty replacements, which will allow me to build an all new ultralight 8.5' 4pc 5wt in cloud grey; woohoo.

Here's an update on the Rodfather quiver ~ I've sold all but one of my manufactured rods from Winston, Sage, and GLoomis as I prefer my custom builds... I am keeping the keen Sage Z-Axis for now; it's one of the best all purpose 5 wts I've thrown. The repaired RFBA2 completely outperforms on power/weight and swingweight ~ it is just a smidge underpowered compared to advertised "5 wt." NP... it'll be an interesting compare to the pending "5wt" cloud grey MHX Native build.

Update 28Oct24 ~ RFBA2 Field Trial On The PT ~ Two Pigs Lost & Tons of Fry

There was an cool looking, and obvious, front entering southern CO that I saw while driving to Pueblo.

I caught tons of both brown & rainbow fry out of NC section of the PT, in green turbid 280cfs waters today. It was warm and I observed some fall #22 baetis and plenty of gray-brown midges so I rigged appropriately but didn't find the bigs. That is, until I relocated upstream to the Valco Ponds area. Upstream featured cooler waters and fish had spread out more here than downstream at the NC. I used mostly the same bugs (oil can perdigon weight, RS2, midge) but tried my blue-green chinele caddis too... it worked as did the RS2 and the purple Bronx midge. I wielded the new RFBA2; it threw great to 80ft but mending was more difficult on ~300cfs Arkansas than a 9 footer with heavier line. The selfies feature not only the new rod but the new vest, my 3rd Simms vest; the 1st two failed in the same way across the upper back/shoulders... hmmm; I kept them alive for a couple of outings with zip ties and iron on patches but this section needs reinforcement. I've written Simms product management as I have with certain wader failures but no significant redesigns as yet. WTF. New Guide Vests have floppy fly box pockets... not as good as formed ones, and the zipper catches in the interior stitched flashing material. WTF. I lost two bigs hookups who ripped my rigs ~ exciting but WTF; that's on me.

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