Another weekday on the Guadalupe

Jimbo Roberts · Post by **Jimbo Roberts** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 4:13 pm

It's getting close to my upcoming vacation to Colorado, so it's time to get some more warm water fishing in before I go. I started out today fishing the K L Ranch down by the first crossing on River Road.

It was real hot Tuesday and you can almost feel the heat and humidity looking at this picture. I was sucking down a lot of water and breaking in my new Smallmouth rod. First a few gratuitous Perch pictures.

Fishing down the bank you'll notice that the water was very chaulky from all the people down here tubing and camping. The fishing was decidely slower again this week. Still it's all relative as I caught around 70 for the day. Here are some pictures of Redbreast Sunfish. This should have been called Orangebelly.....

And this one should be called Goldbelly.....

Instead of the common Yellowbelly name tossed around so much.

I also caught some more Rock Bass.....

And the stray Channel Cat.....

Notice the Greenish/Gold sheen on it's cheek.

The real highlight of the day was walking down the far bank and enjoying the jungle like nature of the near-stream vegetation and geology.....

The old trail is fairly grown over and just a few feet from the waters edge the river is hard to see,
still it is so beautiful to me.....

Then you breakout and see the river.....

This is Central Texas at it's finest.

One last parting shot of the largest Rock Bass 9-10" and my new Smallmouth Rod and a resurrected Fenwick Class IV Reel.

Just another day, which I was lucky enough to enjoy on my beloved Guadalupe. Jimbo

stiles · Post by **stiles** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 4:18 pm

Hey Jimbo - I'd love to hear your impressions of the Sage Smallmouth. How 'bout it?

Jimbo Roberts · Post by **Jimbo Roberts** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 4:42 pm

This was my first real day of fishing with this rod verus casting it in the parking lot. After fishing this rod I was reminded of how powerful this rod is. It shoots line like crazy. It has some good fish fighting capablities. The one thing that I was disappointed in was the limitations of a shorter rod. This rod is 7'11" and I am really a long rod person, so I am a bit biased with this in mind. The rod does not tolerate having a bunch of line out floating down river in the current. It does not easily allow you to open up your loops for things like split shot and weighted flys. I caught the loose line (from the reel) more than a couple of times while opening up the loop for soft presentations because of the 7'11" lenght. Longer rods are more forgiving with changes in casting stokes. Shorter rods that are still relatively fast don't allow for much room for error. Now this is still my first trip with this rod. I was also nymph fishing with a longer and lighter leader (9-10' tapered to 4X) than you would use for the typical Bass Bug fishing. So I'll admit that it was compromised by my tactics. I did do some fishing with just a Cat's Whisker and it handled that better. I think with a shorter and stouter leader, say 7 1/2-8' 2-0X, and a big wind resistant Deer Hair Bug, this rod will slow down and be more in it's element. With the smaller flys, the rod was over powering the presentation and I wasn't able to get the more delicate presentation I was looking for in this situation. Only someone like myself would have used this rod for this kind of fishing, but then again if you had a newly finished custom rod, unused, and was going fishing, even though not an ideal test, wouldn't you try it anyway? I did! It will see some dedicated Bass fishing and I will report back about it's performance then.

Here's a couple of photos of the finished product.....

I used Dark Blue and Gold accents for my raps with some Metallic Blue added in the mix. I also used titanium snake guides and stripping guides.....

I made the rod handle a little bigger and the palm swell a little more forward in the grip with a titanium colored Strubble Reel Seat.....

Jimbo

Alex Argyros · Post by **Alex Argyros** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 8:01 am

Lovely essay, Jimbo. Good luck in Colorado.

Alex

d ayer · Post by **d ayer** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 8:50 am

Jimbo,
Stay out of the snow banks,

david

stiles · Post by **stiles** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 5:16 pm

thanks for the smallmouth report. Once you realize that it's too short for your liking drop me a line and I'll take it off your hands for you;)

Jimbo Roberts · Post by **Jimbo Roberts** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 6:12 pm

Well, I am glad you like it, but it might be an awful long wait. I lean more towards collecting than resell. Plus I think this rod will also work well at the coast with top water flys, to back up my Sage RPLXI 890 with subsurface flys. Time will tell. Jimbo

Jimbo Roberts · Post by **Jimbo Roberts** » Sun Jul 27, 2008 7:48 pm

Looking at the official designation for flyline weights the Smallmouth Rod, with it's 290 grain line, comes in at the 10 weight level, of anywhere from 270-290 grains for flyline weights. No wonder this rod was so over-powering with the smaller flys I've been using! Perch fishing with a 10 weight..... Oh My!
I thought it was more in the 8 weight range, but it is actually much heavier than that, which I don't doubt after casting it. Still I think with some heavier and bulkier flys, like Deer Hair Poppers, this thing will be perfect!

And I love just looking at all the highly diversified vegetation along the Guadalupe valley, and the way the leaves are backlit in this picture, revealing their veins.

Jimbo

stiles · Post by **stiles** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 1:14 pm

I've been hearing great reports about the Smallmouth for windy days on the coast, too. Come to think of it, I think Scott used to make a short saltwater rod. It makes perfect sense for fighting the wind - a little less rod to move through the air and a little more line weight would make a big difference some days...

john · Post by **john** » Sat Oct 04, 2008 6:00 pm

Hey gang, haven't checked this board in a long time so I'm catching up.

I have both a smallmouth and a largemouth rod from Sage. I love them both. I use them a lot for bass fishing with big flies, the smallmouth fishes great with a T200 line for dredging. I used the largemouth in August in Mexico fishing for baby tarpon, and it was awesome. (the fishing was awesome by the way)

They do carry a heavy lineweight in grain weight, but it depends on how you intend to fish them. The lines that come with the rod are super heavy weight forward which contributes to the high grain weight of the line. These are great for short casts because you can really load the rod quickly with the heavy weight forward line. Like I said I use the SM with the T200 and I can shoot almost the entire line. I also have used the LM with a 10 or 11 weight line, but I think I like the line that came with it better.

Anyway, these are great rods. I really like them. I think they may be interesting to try out this winter slinging lead, we'll see.

stiles · Post by **stiles** » Sat Oct 04, 2008 9:11 pm

Hey John - time to get out the check book because Sage is coming out with a third model called the Bluegill!