Northwest Reel Life November - December 2023 Volume 3 Issue 3 - Flipbook - Page 22
gear
I skipped school on a May
morning to fish with my
uncle Jon and his bride. That
was 1985. You might say they
were a bad influence on a
teenager, but if I had it to do
over again, I'd skip my whole
senior year and go steelhead
fishing. Wouldn't you?
I took two rods to the lake
and when, at the end of the
day, I put the gear away,
I realized I had left the fly
rod leaning against a tree.
Someone else ended up
with my 7-weight Wallace
fiberglass and a Pflueger
Medalist.
That Wallace rod was equal
to or superior to the more
popular Fenwicks of the day
and looked like a Fenwick,
22 | NWFISHING.net
except in a medium brown
color.
That was 1985 and my next fly
rod was a custom 5-weight
graphite my uncle built. In
the 1980s, graphite rods
were lighter and a bit more
responsive, but there were
qualities glass rods had the
graphite rods lacked.
A couple of summers back, I
floated the Williamson with
Craig Schuhmann and our
friend Larry Zeilstra. I brought
a custom 5-weight McFarland
fiberglass built by Uncle Jon.
Before I had even wedged my
knees into the casting brace
of Craig Schumann's sweet
Clackacraft, he was ribbing
me about bringing an "old"
fiberglass rod on a serious big
trout trip.