[sinktip]

As the days get longer and the waters warmer, I usually get to dreaming about the floating lines of summer. While swinging tips and big spey flies during March and April are my favorites, by April 30th I am ready to put the big guns away and break out the 7 weights and the full floaters. When May finally comes, I know it is time to pick up Bob Arnold's book, Steelhead and the Floating Line and settle in for the slow wait for floater time.

This little book is less a how-to manual and more a celebration of the joys of chasing summer steel. It has enough technique to appeal to those new to the sport but it is Bob's stories of rivers, fish and fishing that keep me coming back year after year.

Beware that early on, he has some unflattering things to say about double-handed rods. You are advised to keep with it though and stick it out until the last chapter. There, the author's conversion and apology is handled with both grace and a hint of crustiness. It is pure Bob Arnold.

 

[flytyer]

Sinktip,

I was priviledged to fish with and watch my friend Bob go through the transformation from abject hatred of 2-hand rods to a love afair with them. Some of the problem was he didn't know how to spey cast and some of the problem was he made the mistake of picking up one of the old Lamiglas 2-hand rods that were made back in the late '80's for troll fishing in the salt as his first 2-hander.

Thankfully, after he saw folks using 2-handers that knew how to spey cast and who were using rods that were actually designed for fly fishing instead of trolling, he was loaned an old Sage 9140-4 with the "Lemire grip" and learned how to spey cast. That was in the spring of 1995. He then went out and bought himself 2 two-hand rods that May and another one the following spring. He hasn't used a single-hand rod for steelhead since.

I remember the strange looks he and I got from folks the summer of '95 on the Stilly when we were fishing with our 2-handers and the comments about not needing such a big, heavy rod for summer fish. Now it is rare to go our summer or winter and not see folks fishing for steelhead with 2-handers.

This book of his also is special to me because except for the Grande Rhonde, I've fished the other places he speaks about in the book with him. And if we ever get to fish the Wenatchee again, I will be found at the "Camp Water" and "Merlin's" and hopefully will be able to share them once again with Bob.

By the way, I love Bob's "crustiness". It is one of the things that makes him Bob and I never want him to change it.

 

[Dana]

a great book! I've read it several times!

 

[JDJones]

he was loaned an old Sage 9140-4 with the "Lemire grip" and learned how to spey cast. That was in the spring of 1995..

Russ,

What can you tell me about those old 9140-4's with the "Lemire grip"? That was my first rod. Someone once told me there were only two of them made.

 

[flytyer]

JD,

I don't know how many of them were made. They were made with a nearly standard half-wells foregrip and a long spinning rod type of rear grip. Very odd looking to say the least. I've only seen two of them, the one that Bob was loaned and one I saw someone whom I didn't know using on the Sauk. My understanding is they were made in the late 80's on the same blank as the original 9140-4 brownie Graphite II's.

Perhaps Marlow could help out on this since he was using 2-handers then and was a friend of Jimmy Green, the rod's designer, and knows Harry as well.

 

[JDJones]

Thanks for the info Russ. I'll try and remember to look Marlow up at the Sandy Clave. Trouble is, I don't know him or what he looks like. I think someone pointed him out to me last year. And as I recall, he is a little guy. But that's about all I remember.

JD

 

[flytyer]

JD,

Yep, Marlow is short in stature, but very big of heart and a very generous man.