There is an Echo in the boat

As a fly fisherman I love new rods and reels.  Recently I was able to play with a one-piece fly rod.  It is made by a company called Echo Fly rods and it is called the Prime.  The eight-weight version made it into my hands and of course I had to take it out for a test spin.  I called my buddy Andy and we launched his Maverick HPX and headed out for some low tide, skinny water redfish hunting.    The morning was clear, sunny, cool and there was no wind, everything was perfect.  We made our way down the river and found our usual spot where we knew a couple schools of redfish liked to hang out.  As we poled along the glass calm water we could see pushes along the bank, the telltale sign redfish were cruising looking for something to eat.  Well we had a new rod to play with and a box full of flies to offer them.   Another friend, Chris, was along for the ride and we set him up front first.  Chris has never fished a one-piece rod and I wanted to see his reaction to this light-weight line cannon.   He carefully stripped line off the reel and scanned the bank.  As we poled closer to a creek mouth that had a nice shallow mud flat in front of it we saw the water start to stir.  The school of reds had found something tasty to chase and he began casting towards them.   As he casted and let the line shoot, the size 1/0 black Clouser he tied on shot out and landed with a soft plop.  He stopped, and slowly turned around to look at me with a look of disbelief on his face.  He just made a 60-foot cast with hardly any effort and was amazed.    He had no idea the rod would shoot line like that.   He stripped the fly back slowly, picked up the line again and effortlessly launched another long cast towards the school of feeding fish.   This time he realized the cast was not just a lucky cast or a fluke, this rod was the real deal and he was pretty excited.  As he stripped the line in it came tight and he swept the rod low to the left and drove the fly into the fishes lip and the fight was on.  The water exploded as he spooked his school mates and fish went hauling fin in every direction of the compass.   The fish fought hard and ran and quickly took enough line to get on the reel.  Chris reeled him in and played the fish.   As Andy and I were hooting and hollering about the fish and seeing all the fish running everywhere, Chris turned around and gave us a look and put some heat on the fish.  The rod bent over and the line sang and after a quick fight Chris had a beautiful redfish in his hands.

After seeing Chris cast that rod Andy was antsy as a 4-year old at Christmas so we put him up front next and like a kid in a candy store he was casting the rod in amazement as well.  I own another brand of one-piece rod and Andy has casted that rod but he was really excited about the rod.   He started laying lineout and the rod was singing.

We poled down the bank a little more and found another school of fish pushing along.  Andy is used to casting other rods and kept trying to overpower the rod and it was driving him nuts.  I told him to just relax and cast the rod, let it do the work and almost instantly his casts laid out longer and right on target.  This pod of redfish was not as cooperative as the last pod but a nice speckled sea trout liked his fly and ate it heartily.

We looked at the tide and realized we only had a few minutes before it was dead low tide so we motored up and headed down a small creek looking for pockets of fish.

As we came around the bend of the creek we found a nice flat area scattered with oyster mounds and pools of water where we could see redfish pushing around and chasing down shrimp and small baitfish.  These fish were not interested in any fly we threw at them.   As the water rose and the fish moved deeper into the grass we headed out back to the main river.  I had casted the rod in the pools but I really wanted to feel a fish on the end of this rod.  As we worked our way back I was throwing a fly along a grass edge and trying to work over every pocket and feeder creek mouth.  I felt a tug on the line and set the hook with a low sweep and the fish ran out towards deeper water.  I lifted the rod to keep pressure on the fish and saw the biggest trout I have ever hooked lift its head out of the water, look me right in the eye and shake the fly out of its mouth.   That felt good but I wanted more.  We kept making our way done the bank and I saw a fishy looking pocket, I casted into it.  I stripped the line slowly, nothing.  As the fly cleared the pocket and I was about to pull it up to cast again the line went tight.  Another sweeping strip set and the line was flying out of my hands and coming tight on the reel.  The redfish ate the fly and bulldogged me and then ran straight at the boat.  I threw my arm as high as I could and stripped in line as quickly as possible and was not keeping up when Andy started stomping his foot down on the platform.  The fish quickly adjusted course and swam away from the boat and came tight on the reel again. I wanted to see how this rod handled a decent sized fish, I knew I had a strong enough leader and tippet on so I palmed the reel and really put the heat to this fish.   The rod bent but felt solid and never felt like it was at the end and I needed to let up.   I reeled the fish in and took some quick photos before I released it to fight another day. Another awesome day on the water with good friends and cooperative fish was in the books.