Building The Rodfather Redfish [drc #14 & #15 9ft 9wt 4pc fast] 14Jan22-19Feb22-03Mar22

In rapt anticipation of early April in Texas, I designed and built another rod; this is drc #14, the Rodfather Redfish. It's a potent 9' 8wt 4pc based on a powerful IM12 Japanese Toray fiber graphite blank. I built a custom "arrowhead with diamond in a box" handle with 1.5" fixed fighting butt for this rod. The fighting butt need is obvious but the arrowheads (I've never seen one on a handle) are indicative of the needed quickness and distance of casts for tailing redfish... shoot like an arrow. I also selected a salt-impervious aluminum & woven graphite uplocking reel seat in titanium coloring and matched that with true salt impervious, ultra-light, titanium guides (eeesh $$$). I employed oversized guides, including 2 stripping guides, to match the quick & powerful casting needed on the bay when using fat casting heads of an 8-9 weight (225-260 grain) SA Amplitude Smooth Redfish Cold floating line. I wrapped out the matte brown rod in sea blue and mated it to a Piscifun Aoka XS 7/8 reel, also in sea blue. The Aoka XS is not expensive but does have a sealed drag system needed for salt water; I chose it as my experience with other Piscifun reels has been solid and it was fairly inexpensive (as the spool is cast aluminum, not machined, as the reel body is) and light (5 oz) for it's size. I know we'll have spectacular Scott Sector rods on the guide boats, and I'll sure try them, but how much cooler will it be to wield my own weapon. It measures out at an strong ERN of 9.9-10 and AA of 68°, so it's a truer fast 9 wt, yet sports just a light 4.65 oz rod weight. The RFRF balances well as a system and I can cast "miles" with it at the park doing recasts and single and double haul casts quickly. I hope the Amplitude floating line picks up as quickly on the bay as it does on snow.

I'll show the build out in chronological sequence. First to arrive were all the "hardware" parts.

And the first task was to build the custom handles. My idea required the normal amount of jigsawing, reassembly, and then turning. The fighting butt end piece is a solid chunk of rubberized cork for sturdiness; I usually make them this way. I had to change blades on my inset cutter to cut the end of the handle for the fixed hood of this slightly larger (.85" diameter) reel seat hood than typical for me. The resultant full wells arrowhead & diamond handles are pretty keen... shoot the fat, fast and far.

I did craft another handle using basically the same idea but as a "negative" of the original - the 2nd one has light arrows and light boxed diamond)... a brother to the original. I call it the Brother Haine handle.

When the blanks came in (they actually took 5-6 weeks to arrive - slow boat and supply chain issues from Asia I guess) I was able to mark the splines, mark distances for guides, and assemble the butt section with arrowhead handle, reel seat, and fixed fighting butt. I was a smidge concerned as the plastic bag they arrived in was marked 5 weight 8#. Measuring thankfully indicated the 8-9 weight as needed. As I wanted to extend the butt section blank piece through the reel seat end and into the fighting butt, I had to drill a hole in the provided end cap of the reel seat. This allowed me to retain a much more finished look at the fighting butt than if I just slammed the cork up against the screw barrel.

I decided to use a smidge larger colorfast nylon for this bigger rod, expecting a bit more stress on the guides. I chose Pro Wrap size D color-fast nylon (in teal & sunset). Working with this larger thread is much easier to handle during wrapping but really soaks up the epoxy. They both are stunning IMO. Here is Rob's sunset wrapping...

For mine I used sea blue teal but did the middle ferule mixed with sunset in deference to it's brother rod. The RFRF rods have two stripping guides and big titanium snakes for salt water and big shots.

The dead-on matching reel, 85 yds of 30# backing line and SA fly line arrived and I spun the backing and line onto the reel in normal fashion. I will wait to have our guides add leader & tippet setup for Operation Cobra Kai; heck, it's included so why not. The reel & line weigh in at 6.6 ozs.

Measuring the RFRF shows it's a very strong 8wt with an ERN of 9.9-10 (so really a 9wt - and therefore a better line is WF9F) and it is righteously fast with a AA of 68°, despite being just intermediate modulus Toray graphite IM12. Total rod weight is just 4.65oz built out. Balance & mating with the Aoka XS with WF8F is fine.

1st Month CoWW Medallions @ Red Leg 18Feb22

Stout was decent, Hazy was OK, DIPA was there, Blonde was passed. The 1st of monthly CoWW award-fests was held at a packed Red Leg Brewery. Andy received his "big fish" medallion for Jan22 performance; I took home the "most spots" medallion for just two: the Blue in town and the PT; we recognized Greg's "most fish" achievement: >25 fish on the upper Ark; and we raised our glasses to those CoWW who couldn't get there tonight. It was the start of President's Day WE so many had better offers ~ but Jim, Andy and I did not, so we mulled among the throngs at RL. Nice evening out with food truck sushi and more. Congrats to all CoWW for successful passage beyond the C19 pandemic.

Andy's 'Big Fish" for Jan22 was an 18.5" cutbow from the PT town section; taken on a blood midge; he was using the Rodfather 4A 3wt.

Much Better On The PT 16Feb22

Jim & I couldn't scare up a 3rd much less a 4th for our 2nd outing to the PT Town section. It was gorgeous weather but chilly early and snowy late (back in COS). We had a much better day on this section of the PT than our last - we caught 5 fish each with 2-3 larger ones each and could see the better fish more clearly than prior. Finning on the rainbow/cutthroat redd was evident - even check the kype jaw forming on Jim's 19" male!

Most successful midges were the #24 mojo, #22 MH black miracle and the #20 blood midge... nothing on the zebras. Unfortunately I lost two larger fish to breakoffs - dunno if it was my lame fighting, lame knots or lame brain but yeah, that happened in the footbridge hole and the weirs above. Jim scorched the trough beneath the murals. We celebrated our improvement with some beers and nosh at Cerberus.

Here's my lame breakoff in video direct from the footbridge show-hole; it begins after a 2.5 minute fight...

Winter Fly Box Renewals 14Feb22

Here's a simple blog entry on the winter replenishment of some fly boxes of the infamous Front Range Fish boys, the Cult of the White Wing.

Cerevisiaevelo Piscator hails from the upper Ark.
He organizes in two boxes primarily: freestones & tailwaters.
The freestone box is full again.

Hog Hunter is from COS and home waters are So Platte & Ark.
His boxes are mixed but he fishes mostly tailwaters at home.
And he ties mostly #22s; he's King of the PT.

More from Hog Hunter

Birdies & Browns is from northern COS.
His boxes are in rebuild as his cute dog ate all his boxes and flies!
He roams the world for fish and game and led us to a fine club

The Gr8FishMan lives in Summit Co often and calls Blue, Gore, Eagle
as well as So Platte and Arkansas home waters. He organizes by genus
and here are some mayflies & midges but stone, caddis & streamer boxes exist.

The boys with their new boxes have had some good days on the PT...

Andy even landed a nice one using the Rodfather 4A...

Skiing With Old & New Friends 11Feb22

Dear and old friend Karen from Phoenix came to CO for some skiing. I have been after her to come for some snow sliding for years and it finally happened! Kala & I checked out Bluebird Market before she arrived, in part in case it might be a spot for us to take her. We also booked the rescheduled Regrettes concert in Fort Collins (I already have Molly Tuttle tix for the show at the Fox in Boulder).

Karen came with a team of respiratory therapists including Nico & Ginny, Rick, and of course, Jimmy was here too. We met up Thu PM after the team rented skis at Virgin Island and enjoyed pho then a nightcap at Angry James. I played guide on Fri at Breck after meeting them and Dave Sheldon at the base of Pk 7. We had a blast and enjoyed great weather all day, though incurred several wind gusts and spindrift in the face. Dave was a champ and swept while I led all over the mountain from Pk 6 to Pk 10, hitting all the peaks for a couple runs each. I did close with a failed guide move ~ I took the team down a bump run to significant jeers. We stopped at Broken Compass for a few beers before moving in to Frisco and settling in a corner for some great ORB offers. We grabbed thai chix and more from Bird Cafe and then ate and listened to tunes on the Nest Theater before calling it. A really great day with old and new friends.

Bro Brown's Ski Week 01Feb22-07Feb22

It's time for Steve Brown's annual boys ski week in Summit Co; typically a blast with some good friends and good skiers. Unfortunately Bro Brown has a pair of cracked ribs and will not be joining for much of the skiing this year - he's gotta be bummed, and I am so for him. We kicked off the event on day 1 with Hubbs & I hitting Keystone on an overcast but snowless day. We skied all the peaks and while much was a bit icy we navigated fine. The best "snow" was on recently groomed trails where Richard carved like a demon. Of course we stopped at Steep for an apres ski brew ~ I strangely chose two beers in a row where I kicked the keg and just got the final taste. That night I made some appetizers that the boyz (Brad, Scott, Richard, Steve and I) enjoyed and Richard made killer meatloaf & mashies.

I sat out day 2 as 0° highs were predicted for the mountains and we only scored ~4" of new snow. Still the team of Scott, Richard and Brad said conditions didn't suck at Keystone. Steve and I caught some keen videos on the Nest Theater. We finished at Brown's Lodge with ski tuning, more Mediocre Armatures, lasagna and Dave's appetizers... I even built a new one made of Ritz, brie, shredded Mex chicken, sriracha-mango balsamic & dark balsamic - good.

Awaking to -11° temps at the Nest confirmed I would not be skiing on day 3 either. Such conditions even deterred the ambitious Boyz of the Lodge so I waited and started the day with lunch at ORB & Bird Cafe. ORB just celebrated their 5th anniversary and had plenty of cans made for that event. I tried the very worthy 5th Anniversary DDH IPA. The boyz watched the amazing film The Alpinist. We dined on Richard's tasty burgers at Steve's.

Jim arrived Thu per plan and we hosted totties (cassis sour and mango lemonade) & tunes @ the Nest before heading to the Lodge for lasagna. Brad ultimately admitted that he liked some of the music.

Finally the chill was expected to thaw on Friday so we hatched a plan to ski Vail and meet up with another MN boy, a friend of the young boyz, Glen. The thaw was not on as we awoke though it was still 0° at the Nest. Nonetheless, undaunted, we headed to Vail for $30 parking!! and bundled up. We skied decent snow all over the Back Bowls, even out to Mongolia, and then in the Northwoods. It was ultimately a gorgeous day and we took the chance to get the pics with Mt of the Holy Cross in the background and chill at Belle's Cabin for a bit.

Jim and I left a bit early with my knee twinging all day. We chose to have a pop at the Vail Brewing Co taphouse in Solaris Plaza (Yoho had never been) and then lunch on great food at Mtn Std. We hit the hot tubs and then ate again at the Lodge, this time on Hubbs' chili - accompanied by a nice shot of Heradura anejo tequila full college style. Folks were pretty wiped out and we all called it an early evening.

Saturday is a weekend day so no big resort skiing for me but Yoho got to ski KS with his kid Nick for their first outing in a while. We hit the Lodge again for dinner Sat night but called it an early evening. Sunday is another weekend day so Jim & I decided to hit the Blue River Tailwater in town. It's really a just a ~4 hour window when fish are active here in winter so we hit it without success 10:30-2:30. I targeted several nice fish I saw but did not hook up. We rolled over to a new Dillon restaurant, Bistro North, for lunch. It was pretty good.

Sunday night offered excellent vittles at the Lodge again. Steve prepared amazing ribeyes; Richard added twice-baked tatters; Brad thoughtfully prepared a salad; and I brought over a stellar bottle of 2016 Bodega de Edgar Mis Pasos (a great blend of cab sauv, syrah, and terpranillo). All delicious and enjoyed while I forced some historic tunes, including Randy Newman's "Putin," on Steve's guests.

We hit the slopes again on Monday - Breckenridge. The Scott-mobile got us there to meet up with Glen at the Grand Lodge on Pk 7 where we also met Yoho (so he could head directly home the back way after skiing). It was a great day skiing above the trees - mostly down Whale's Tail and surrounding runs. There were thin parts - especially on the traverse out from Imperial but we all survived and had a blast on a very nice sunny day (which ultimately softened the snow well). We even caught up with Dennis for some runs. After skiing Pk 6 and Pk 7 and Whale's Tail in the AM, after lunch I took Brad and Richard on a quest to get all peaks in one day: 6,7,8,9,& 10, for variety, so we headed down Pk 9 to E chair up and then down to Falcon up Pk 10. We chose to ski the dubl black Mustang off there (a steep but short bump run) where Hubbs took a header and slid the entire hill. He was "ok" but his neck was a smidge jarred - Brad made a great ski recovery and side-slipped the entire hill like a snowboarder. We made it back to the Super-Connect for our final Pk 8 score and then to Sevens to chill while awaiting Scott for a ride.

I convinced Scott (it wasn't too hard) to stop at Broken Compass so I could grab some ColoRADBro DDH IPA cans to take to Bro Brown. Yeah, we stopped in for a couple of pops in addition and had a fun time with the Minnesota Mafia tasting BC's fine beers.

It's been a great "week" with the Boyz of the Lodge and my only regret is that our big ski bro was down for the time being... we'll ski later my friend. Thanks for such great hosting.

Cool Wyze Lamp Lights The Spot 02Feb22

Kala and I needed a brighter task light at night in the great room @ the Nest. Reading or games on the coffee table were a little challenging when just lit by the indirect track lights. We'd looked at many more expensive alternatives but landed on the keen Wyze LED floor lamp. It was only $75 shipped direct and comes with a Bluetooth wireless remote "puck" to control it (alternatively one can use a Wyze app on the phone but nah) using push for on-off and rotate for dimming. The head has 15 LEDs throwing a 23° spot beam plenty bright enough. Recommended.