Removing excuses and testing resolve

Do I really value versatility, or, am I just unable to focus

I got a new fly rod last week and will be fishing with it this coming Friday (if I get over this horrid cold). This comes as no surprise (my getting new gear) to readers of mine, but this time it’s different.

I have been a fan and friend of Domenick Swentosky’s of Troutbitten for some time and love everything about how he fishes and shares his love for versatility in pursuit of trout with a fly rod. He and I have had many conversations about fly fishing and I have had the extreme pleasure to have been on guided trips with him several times and have several on the calendar coming up.

While Dom is rightly known for his work developing and teaching the mono rig fly fishing system, he is far from a one trick pony. Follow his content for any period of time and you will quickly learn that he is often changing leaders to allow for fishing however the conditions (or his mood) change.

By having a normal floating fly line on his reel he can quickly cut off the 30’ mono rig leader and tie on a custom George Harvey dry fly leader to have optimal performance if a hatch pops off. 20 minutes later, he can cut that leader off and go back to the mono rig to fish streamers and/or multi-nymph rigs.

I love fly fishing and hope to be able to actively be a wade angler until the day I die, inspired by the great Joe Humphreys. Too much gear is starting to be a problem for me mentally and my excuse has always been that I want to have the best possible set up for optimal performance.

My excuse for not fully embracing the troutbitten versatile angler mantra has been that I have never had the perfect fly rod for it. Nevermind that Dom would never support that comment. He would say fish with what you have.

The new rod is a Hardy Ultralite LL 9’9” 4wt. Dom fishes with one and shares that it is currently one of the best if not the best fly rods to fully embrace his way of being a versatile angler. My plan is to fish primarily with that fly rod for the rest of the year focusing on being versatile and adapting to conditions via skill as opposed to trying to have specialized tools (rod).

I will bring a back up 10’ 4wt rod with me (my trust Orvis Recon) just in case I break the rod (it will happen).

Getting this rod, thanks to a gift from a friend and customer, means that all the excuses are off the table (even if they weren’t really there to begin with).

What does this mean for Tenkara and my beloved small streams? No change. I will be fishing with shorter rods for those situations than the Hardy and will mess around with all kinds of options there. However, my primary trout rod for most situations is going to be the Hardy and I want to see how good I can get at being versatile.

There is a delicious freedom that I am hoping to have by eliminating choice from my gear selection. I am looking forward to doing a presentation on tight line nymphing with my local Trout Unlimited chapter hear in Roanoke, VA in May and sharing how I use the mono rig and the versatility it brings to my friends.

How are all of you doing?

All the best and tight lines,

Mike