Stream Time: Competitive Fly Fishing

Time for another rod review. This time I'll do a little side by side review comparing what is arguably one of the best European style nymphing rods, the Sage ESN 2100 (2 wt 10'), with the entry level Greys Streamflex FX2 2 wt 10'. Both are four piece rods.

As one would expect. These are very much specialty rods designed for sensitivity and presenting nymphs with fine tippet in a variety of conditions. However, because of this specialization both are manufactured in limited quantities and repairs and replacements can take time--as I discovered. Add this to the fact that Greys has been discontinued in North America, and you are looking at what may be considered a "one time buy".

Aesthetics:

The ESN is a beautiful rod. Sage has really pulled out the stops and built a highly functional rod in a gorgeous package. I won't bother to quote the company blurb, but this is like the Ferrari or Aston Martin of nymphing rods. Dark forest green glossy body, dark green wraps, immaculate finish on all components, and a solid single ring up locking reel seat. It incorporates one Fuji ceramic stripping guides and 10 hard chrome snake foot guides to the tip. It comes in a a super light 79.3 g (2.8125 oz). Add in a beautiful cocobolo reel seat insert and perfect half well cork handle and you've got one sexy piece of kit. (MSRP $695 US)

If the ESN is a Ferrari, the Greys is an economical family car. Dependable, a little stylish and made overseas. Not to say that the rod is in any way ugly. I described the 3 wt Streamflex in a previous review as "top notch" for fit and finish and the 2 wt XF2 follows this mold. The only visual difference is the anodized reel seat insert "cage" seen in other rods on the market. This rod has a single ceramic stripping guide and 9 chrome single foot guides to the tip. This rod comes in at 90 g (3.17 oz), and also features a half well handle made of slightly lower quality cork than the ESN. (MSRP $300 US)

Performance:

In spite of their common application both rods are different beasts.

The ESN has a ultra fine top section progressing to a stiff strong butt. The tip flexes extremely well to protect fine light weight tippets, while the butt makes controlling larger fish a simple task. In a lot of respects it has all the hallmarks of a typical modern Sage rod: it's fast, recovers quickly and casts crisply and cleanly. My largest fish to date with this rod has been in the 14" range and at no point have I ever felt under gunned.

The Streamflex is much closer to a traditional rod in that the action is more uniformly progressive through it's length, although it's butt section like the ESN is more stout than with a traditional rod. The tip is soft and flexible and has protected fine tippet from breaking on some very large fish indeed. While I have landed fish in the 24" range with this rod, controlling larger fish with it is a bit of a workout.

Opinion:

Any rod review is going to have a strong subjective element, but I'll give you my opinion anyway. Leaving aside the price differential for a moment, both of these rods are excellent for the purpose for which they are designed--namely sensitively fishing for smaller trout with fine tippet and light nymphs. Both of course will do more than that, and this is where one might be better suited for your needs than the other.

If encountering larger fish is an issue and you need to throw a longer line as in French style nymphing, the edge has to go to the ESN. It's action and stiffer butt section lend themselves well to these applications.

If a comfortable casting stroke and wet fly or downstream presentations are more important, then the Greys gets the nod. It's slightly slower action and increased mid rod flex make casting very easy and I feel there is less chance of losing fish to the dreaded "bounce" on wet fly presentations.

If budget is a concern then the clear winner has to be the Greys. At less than half the price you've got a great nymphing rod that will allow you to do everything the more expensive ESN is designed to do in a well built package--but hey, if you can afford a Ferrari to shuttle the kids to soccer practice, then go for it. For what it's worth I'm keeping both.

Typical Rod Configuration(s) Used:

Lines: Rio competition nymph; Rio classic 1wt DT; Generic Trout Legend competition line
Reel: Hardy Flyweight
Leader: 20' Nymphing Leader/tippet

Similar rods used/tested:

Greys original Streamflex 3wt 10' and 4wt 11'

**North American Measures**
X Rating	Dia. (mm)	Dia. (in)	BS (kg)	BS (lb)
8X	0.076	0.003	0.7	1.5
7X	0.102	0.004	1.1	2.4
6X	0.127	0.005	1.5	3.4
5X	0.152	0.006	2.3	5
4X	0.178	0.007	2.9	6.4
3X	0.203	0.008	3.7	8.2
2X	0.229	0.009	4.5	10
1X	0.254	0.010	5.9	13
0X	0.279	0.011	6.8	15

**European Measures**
Dia. (mm)	X-Rating	Dia. (in)	BS (kg)	BS (lb)
0.06	9X	0.0023	0.7	1.5
0.07	8.5X	0.0027	0.8	1.8
0.08	8X	0.0031	1.0	2.2
0.09	7.5X	0.0035	1.2	2.7
0.10	7X	0.0039	1.4	3.1
0.11	6.5X	0.0043	1.6	3.5
0.12	6X	0.0047	1.8	4.0
0.13	5.5X	0.0051	2.0	4.4
0.14	5X	0.0055	2.3	5.0
0.15	4.5X	0.0059	2.6	5.7
0.16	4X	0.0063	3.0	3.6
0.17	3.5X	0.0067	3.3	7.3
0.18	3X	0.0071	3.6	7.9

The 2009 Canadian National Fly Fishing Championships were held this past week (September 21st through the 26th) in perhaps one of the most beautiful places on this continent--Fernie BC. Although the event was originally scheduled to be held in William's Lake this year, last minute difficulties necessitated the switch to Fernie and I for one couldn't have been happier because of the chance to fish one of the premier cutthroat rivers in North America. Event organizer, Kevin McIsaac, managed to pull together a very good event given the time available and aside from dropping one of the venues (Loon Lake) from the competition due to a lack of suitable vessels, the event progressed pretty smoothly.

I was one of 45 entrants and came to the competition with Team Mustang, skippered by Wayne Yoshizawa. In addition to Wayne, I was joined by Norm Godding, Randy Paskall, Randy Patton, and our lovely support staff Leslie Godding and Deb Paskall. While all of us had at least some competitive experience under our collective belts (Wayne and Norm were part of the Gold Medal team in the Campbell River Nationals) we were a relatively "young" team in terms of the overall field of competitors.

Leslie, Norm, Randy Paskall, Wayne Yoshizawa, me, & Randy Patton

Practice:

With the exception of Norm and Leslie, the bulk of the team arrived late on Friday the 18th and practice began immediately. With no knowledge of the eventual competition locales, we spent the first full day fishing a stretch of river just above what would eventually be upper venue on the Elk river between Fernie and Sparwood. This piece of water was lovely--a shelf just metres from the shore transitioned first into a deeper pool and eventually into a long slow tailout and back eddy. The cutthroat waited beneath the shelf edge and happily took a variety of dries, nymphs and soft hackles without significantly spooking. Aside from some time working pocket water before we arrived at this spot, most of the first day was spent here. In hindsight this probably wasn't wise, but based on the performance of various flies in this stretch of water we began to form a strategy around techniques and fly types.

The second day was spent at Loon Lake, the venue that would eventually be dropped from the competition. Even before we had arrived this was pegged as the make-or-break venue of the competition, and thanks to Norm's scouting we were armed with knowledge of the lakes two main cold water springs and holding structure. In spite of swirling wind conditions we were able to get a few clean drifts through the holding waters and landed eight fish on the day on a variety of patterns.

Satisfied that Loon was an open book to us we divided our remaining time between the river, which produced fish throughout our practice sessions, and Summit Lake which was for the most part generous to us. I should have been worried when I personally didn't get a strike on Summit, but my teammates' success (particularly Norm Godding's and Randy Paskall's) alleviated any lingering anxiety. In fact I felt comfortable enough to take a little time after the practice sessions to sneak up to Michelle Creek to fish dry flies to the willing cutthroat of that system.

Competition:

For those unfamiliar with the competition format, the events are usually divided into five separate venues. Those venues on streams or shore are in turn broken up into "beats" and assigned randomly among the competitors. In the case of the 2009 Championships there were three river and two lake venues chosen. The three Elk river venues were situated above, in and below the town of Fernie, while the two lake venues took place off the shores of Summit Lake--one on the Southeast shore (Summit 1) and one on the Northwest shore (Summit 2).

Summit 2 Beat 8

The venues weren't chosen to be easy and (as you can see from the picture at right) not for looks either. The two lake venues were shore based and competitors had the option of wading. Essentially the beats (100') were strung along the shoreline and numbered one through nine with the starting beat situated closest to the access points (South in the case of Summit 1 and North in the case of Summit 2).

My first beat was Summit 2, beat 8 and the shot at right was the view looking North. This venue was the replacement for the cancelled session on Loon Lake and in spite of the bleak scree hill pictured, turned out to be a very productive spot owing to the relatively quick drop-off and proximity to the outlet stream at the North end of the lake. Brookies and rainbow were taken in this sector and fishing favoured the morning sessions. Throwing boobies and other floating flies with a sinking line hooked two fish for me, but unfortunately I wasn't able to bring any to hand. Team Mustang faired well on both lake venues, but only Norm Godding was able to land fish for the team on this particular venue, narrowly defeating Todd Oishi from the Cormorants to win his session.

Summit one was a little fairer to the team, with Randy Patton taking his session using a general copper and black pattern, and Wayne Yoshizawa picking up a third place in his session using a black UV bugger.

View From Elk 2 Beat 2 Downstream

I'll be the first to admit I am not the stillwater angler that most of my teammates are, but I was prepared to do better on the river venues, and for the most part I was pleased with my performance. What I was not prepared for, and I suspect the same could be said about all of my teammates, was the water chosen for the beats on the river. On such a beautiful river, with such perfect fishing water, the organizers managed to find some of the most difficult to fish areas I've seen on any river system. Many runs were devoid of structure and those that had it often involved deep fast slots and near impossible to cross sections. I suspect that most of the competitors relished the challenge (I certainly did later), but the initial shock of finding that my first beat was a lousy section of water that I had skipped over during one of the practice sessions was just too much. In spite of literally swimming across the flow at one point to get to fishable water I was not able to bring any of the four fish I hooked to hand and blanked on the session.

I'm sure the majority of the competitors hitting the river on the first day were likewise shocked at the unforgiving water chosen for the competition, except perhaps for those lucky few that had one of the smattering of very productive beats scattered through the competition. If there was one small criticism I would level at the Championship, it would be the inconsistency of the water quality in the river beats, but that's fishing and the luck of the draw.

Deep Wading in Elk 1 Beat 2

I managed to fair much better on my second river beat, drawing a relatively good looking beat in the upper Elk consisting of tailout water at the top end and having a small inflow creek at the bottom. I shared this beat (as well as the last one) with John Nishi, the eventual individual and team gold medallist. This arrangement was the norm in the competition, with two competitors dividing a single beat, fishing half of it in the first ninety minutes and then changing positions for the second 90 minutes. I won the coin toss and fished the better looking upper half of the beat, managing six whitefish and a single cutthroat. I followed this with two cutthroat in the lower section which was enough to secure a first on the session.

Just an aside here on the Elk river whitefish. I was pleasantly surprised at the fighting ability of this little sportsfish and by its bonefish like ability to disappear like a ghost into the watery depths. Even in clearer and slower stretches of water the whitefish were virtually invisible, only betraying their presence when spooked by a clumsy wading angler. They proved to be an excellent competition target due mostly to their relative abundance on the Elk system and their tendency to favour water not normally home to cutthroat--which seemed to describe most of the competition beats.

A Stealthy Approach on Elk 3 Beat 4

I can safely say my final river beat was the toughest of the competition. Elk 3 beat 4 below town, a virtually featureless strip of shallow water, had bested eight anglers prior to our arrival on the final day of competition. Of the eight anglers only one had managed to hook and subsequently lose a single fish. Hopes were less than high going in, but the weather had warmed imperceptibly from the previous day we knew that there was at least one fish in the run. John won the coin toss and was the first to hook a small whitefish just prior to the changeover. He went on to hook a second one before I managed to finally land one. This pattern was repeated once more and we finished three to two, which turned out to be enough to take second and third on the session.

Our team faired well on the river as a whole, but certainly not as well as we would have hoped. Including the one I missed on, we drew a total of five river blanks and this pushed us well down in the standings in spite of session wins by Norm Godding and myself on the river.

Wrap-up:

The 2009 Competition, in spite of a few technical glitches, turned out to be a great contest. The selection of river and lake beats made things tough from the get go, but it bought out the best in many of the competitors. Only the most skillful of anglers could make a silk purse out of a pig's ear, and there was certainly more than a few "pig's ears" in this contest. As a result it was no surprise that some of the big players from last year's competition made their way to the top again. On Team Mustang's part this meant that our most experienced members, Norm Godding and Wayne Yoshizawa, managed to keep the team's fortunes alive.

We will see how things work out for upcoming contests, but the junior members of Team Mustang are already making plans to start working on our various weaknesses in preparation for future Nationals. Unfortunately Norm and Wayne won't have the same luxury, as Norm's strong showing was enough to gain him a position on the next Commonwealth Team heading for Wales in 2010, while Wayne will be joining the team heading to the US Nationals in Pennsylvania later this month. Congratulations to them both!

Sun Over the Elk River Final Day

Thank You's:

I just wanted to offer thanks to all the individuals and groups that made the 2009 National Fly fishing Championships such a success:

Kevin McIsaac for organizing the event and herding us every morning through the competition
Gord Silverthorne, of the Kootenay Fly Shop for his guidance and time in laying out the river beats
Randy Taylor and John Nishi for laying out the Summit Lake venues
Randy Taylor for leaving his fishing gear at home
All those people that volunteered there time for the event including FFC's Bob and Brandy Sheedy, Neil, Marcell, Jeff, Aaron, et al.
The NFFC competitors
And most importantly the people of Fernie BC

On a personal note I would also like to thank Wayne Yoshizawa for being such a patient and thoughtful team captain; Norm Godding for being the team anchor and great story teller; Randy Paskall for his ongoing encouragement; Randy Patton for his companionship and his love of flytying; Leslie Godding for being the team cheerleader and social co-ordinator; Deb Paskall for being our all-round support staff (and for rescuing my forgotten gear from the hotel parking lot); John Nishi for providing such stiff competition on our shared river beats; Todd Oishi for his past tutoring; Don Chatwin of Moby Nets; Wei Zhao of Admundson Outdoors; Korker's boots; Roger Baker and Hatch Reels; and finally my darling wife, Sheila who has yet to divorce me over my other mistress (fly fishing).

Results:

The following are unofficial results provided by Todd Oishi of FFC (name placings/fish)

1. John Nishi 10/18
2. Ryan Suffron 14/21
3. Todd Oishi 15/19
4. Philip Short 17/22
5. Byron Shepard 18/23
6. Sorin Comsa 19/16
7. Norm Godding 20/14
8. Chris Pfohl 21/22
9. Robert Stroud 22/26
10. Morgan Thorp 22/12
11. Marius Dumitru 22/14
12. Jason Baxter 23/7
13. Clayton Hobbs 24/19
14. Clint Goyette 24/16
15. Ernie Kalawa 24/10
16. Peter Huyghebaert 25/8
17. Chris Iskiw 25/6
18. Ron Courtoreille 26/8
19. John Bisset 27/15
20. Graham Murfitt 27/5
21. Steve Harris 28/13
22. Derek Nees 29/17
23. Terence Courtoreille 29/8
24. Wayne Yoshizawa 29/8
25. Matthew Sparrow 29/7
26. Jonathan Furigay 30/11
27. Peter J. Morrison 30/11
28. Jason Doucette 30/4
29. Aaron Laing 31/11
30. Matt Majors 31/5
31. Ivo Balinov 33/15
32. Arron Varga 33/8
33. Randy Patton 34/4
34. Colin Dunn 35/3
35. Sunny VanDerKloof 36/3
36. Jim Iredale 37/7
37. JeanFrancois Lavalle 37/5
38. Colette Stroud 37/5
39. Alastair Grogan 37/3
40. Rick Passek 39/1
41. Randy Paskall 42/1
42. Rob Viala 42/1
43. Jeremiah Hamilton 45/1
44. Teri Crutcher 45/0
45. Jeff Weltz 45/0

Team Results:

1. The Cormorants 97/93
2. Team Double Hauls 112/69
3. Trout Rustlers 129/61
4. Team VIP 131/36
5. Team Endiable 145/61
6. Ospreys 146/55
7. Team Mustang 156/38
8. Team Tight Lines 184/32
9. Team Rio West Coast 198/8

A few good memories...