SWAGED VS CAST ROUNDBALLS

[Daryl]

Consistency, though art a jewel.  Yes- lots of shooting to do, but fishing as well.

Over the last couple months, I've tied up a few (maybe 4) dozen new ones. Had lots (10 doz or so)

left over from previous years, but picked up some new books with slightly different patterns

and keyed for the rivers, creeks and lakes around here. Had to buy 4 new fly boxes - maybe 6 or 7 dozen new ones.

 

[OldMtnMan]

Consistency, though art a jewel.  Yes- lots of shooting to do, but fishing as well.

Over the last couple months, I've tied up a few (maybe 4) dozen new ones. Had lots (10 doz or so)

left over from previous years, but picked up some new books with slightly different patterns

and keyed for the rivers, creeks and lakes around here. Had to buy 4 new fly boxes - maybe 6 or 7 dozen new ones.

I'm from the opposite end of fly choice. I'm a minimalist when it comes to flies. I use nothing but dry flies, bamboo rods, and silk lines. I only tie with natural materials.

One year I fished nothing but the Adams fly in different sizes all year. It seemed I caught as many fish as using boxes of flies. It taught me a lot about how important presentation was compared to matching the hatch.

The Arkansas River runs right through my town. Mostly brown trout. 100 miles of Gold medal water to fish. The bronies are picky about presentation and stealth, but not so much about fly choice. Lot's of hatches going on and it's rare the fish key in on one hatch.

Anyway, good luck choosing the right fly when you're on the water.

[Daryl]

Enviable! I do have my father-in-laws cane rod from the 40's. He'd bought it just before joining the merchant marine during the second war.  He'd not had a chance to use it until after the war.
I also have the reel he used- more of a simply, VERY simple line storage device. It fit my backing and 3-wgt floating ling, perfectly.  The rod is about an 8 weight, but feel, and casts all of my 7 through 9 weight lines, depending on which tip is used.
It's fun to use, VERY soft but can 'carry' a lot of line in the air.
I much prefer my long rods for rivers, though - 10ft. in 6 and 7 wgts graphites for large trout, 13.6' in 10 wgt. graphite for salmon, with my 15' 10 wgt and 11wgt graphite rods for steelies.

[OldMtnMan]

I should have known from the loads you shoot in your guns that you'd have big fly rods too.

I'm more a 9' 5wt for the rivers and 7 1/2' 4wt for creeks.

[Daryl]

5's are a very good compromise between 4's and 6's. Many of the guys here use 6's in lakes. I started off in BC with a 5 wgt. Fenwick for lakes and rivers, but
bought my Orvis big rod for steelhead, back in 82 or so. It's caught a lot of fish 15 to 20 pounds in the Skeena and Kitimat rivers. My best Steelhead on the 15'
Orvis 11wtg. was 24 pounds, caught in the Kitimat River, over on the left coast.

Just picked up an 8 1/2' 3wgt. Reddington for the local "Crooked River". There are a few large fish, bull trout (dolly's), but lots mostly 10" to 14" and
shorter rainbows as well as Rocky mountain whitefish and some Arctic Grayling that take flies well. The Crooked flows north to the Arctic Ocean,
starting about 30 miles North of town.
For local lakes I used to use nothing but my 9' 4wgts, but am experimenting this summer with the 10' 6's and 7's due to the prevailing winds on most of
 the lakes I fish. My soft 4's don't do well in the wind.

[OldMtnMan]

I like 14" to 18" brown trout. Nice and comfortable to catch. I have to run downstream for the big ones and i'm getting too old to be running over rocks.   

[okawbow]

I shoot chunk, table, and offhand monthly. I’ve used swaged balls in the past, until I started weighing each one for matches. Out of a box of 100 swagged balls, I only got 20 or so that were within 1 grain of each other. They also didn’t measure the same and weren’t round. I started casting my own, and the weights were much closer and all were the same size. My groups shrank noticeably.

I’ve always used pure lead cast balls for hunting and almost always get a flattened ball that bulges out the skin on the far side of the deer. The ball does more damage and expends all of its energy in the animal.

I cast most of my own, but each year I buy a few hundred cast balls at the Alvin York memorial shoot in Pall Mall, Tn. They are about half the price of swagged balls and no shipping.

[Daryl]

I like 14" to 18" brown trout. Nice and comfortable to catch. I have to run downstream for the big ones and i'm getting too old to be running over rocks.   

LOL, I can see it. I stopped running after salmon and steelies a long time ago.  If I get a runner downstream, I point the rod at it and break it off.