St. Marys River Field Testing 2009

I just returned from another trip to the St. Marys River in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. The weather has been unseasonably cold up there and there were days it only managed to reach 55 degrees. The rapids had a few fish in but not as many as expected. I did manage to land my first Atlantic Salmon on a salmostick rod (a St. Croix 3SML90-2 blank wrapped with #4 guides and a carbon fiber split grip), I was also throwing spinners I made which made it a little more rewarding.
You can see he has his right pectoral fin clipped which indicated the fish was released in 2007 from the Lake Superior State University research center. The fish are released when they are 1-1/2 years old so this fish is 3-1/2 years old, he is still swimming around out there and I hope he makes it back next year. I also spent a day in "The Soo" fishing with Capt. Travis White who runs St. Mary's Guide Company. We fished with fly gear from his boat and caught 5 Atlantics and 3 Rainbow/Steelhead. It was one of the best times I've had fishing, fighting the hard charging Atlantics on a 6wt is quite the experience. They will be there in fishable numbers through August, if you have a chance I hightly suggest you reserve a date with Capt. Travis and head north. You will not be dissapointed.


In the rod building cue for this week are 2 musky rods and 2 walleye bottom bouncing rods. All are being built on Batson blanks. This will be my first build on these blanks and they are very nice, especially the Rainshodows. Very high quality construction and high modulus graphite, they will make some nice high performance musky rods. In the following week I will be working on another musky rod and "skipping" rod for bass fishing.