ROD REPAIR BY JOHN BERRY

I guided two anglers from Nashville, Matt and Mike, this week. I had fished with them before and they are very enthusiastic and competent fly fishers. We spent the morning at Rim Shoals and it was on fire. I netted around seventy trout before we stopped for lunch. The water was rising and I checked the generation on my IPhone. I saw that there was a push of around 11,000 cubic feet per second headed our way.

I was concerned that the water may come up dirty and suggested that we spend the remainder of the day wading the Norfork. They were staying at River Ridge Inn which is on the Norfork Tailwater and we decided to wade the lower river behind the lodge. We drove to the lodge, wandered up and chose a nice run nearby. The fishing was not as spectacular as we had on the White River but was good in its own right. We caught some nice trout and had a large section of river to ourselves for the afternoon.

While casting at a nice brown, Mike caught the bottom and tangled his line in the process of freeing it. I took his rod and sat on a large rock on the bank while I untangled the line. I invited Mike to join me while I worked on his line. When he sat down, he managed to break his beloved Sage Z-AXIS fly rod. I explained how to send it back to Sage to have it repaired under the warranty. He then walked back to the lodge and got his back-up rod so that he could continue fishing.

I thought about my history with broken rods. My first was also a Sage. In my case an RPL nine foot six weight. I left it on the roof of a rental car in Yellowstone National Park while fishing near Buffalo Ford on the Yellowstone River. I watched, in horror, through the rear window as a large pickup truck rolled right over it. The week I got it back from Sage, after a seven week trip to Bainbridge Island, Washington for repairs, I managed to put it into the whirling blades of a Hunter ceiling fan as I was rigging it for a night fishing trip for big trout on the Spring River.

My next victim was my beloved Sage four weight nine foot Light Line fly rod, my all time favorite fly rod. Once again I left it on the roof of my car, when I was fishing at Rim Shoals. I am seeing a pattern here. I didn’t discover that it was missing until I got home and was unloading my gear. My rod was mysteriously missing. I raced back to Rim to find it on the road crushed.

I sent it back to Sage for repair but they could not fix it as it was made from Graphite II, which by then had been replaced by Graphite III. For a princely sum, they made me a new Light Line from the Graphite III but it was not the same. I ended up buying a new Sage ZXL, which I now fish, in lieu of the Light Line.

The next rod that I managed to break was my wife, Lori’s, Orvis Far and Fine. In this case, I closed a car door on it, while we were fishing at McClellan’s. Automobiles seem to be a death trap for fly rods. It is much harder to explain to someone else (particularly a fly fishing wife) that you broke their rod. They can be so judgmental. I sent it back to Orvis for a free repair that made it as good as new.

Finally there are our TFOs. We have five identical nine foot, five weight, two piece, Lefty Kreh Professional series fly rods that we loan to clients. As client rods, they suffer an inordinate amount of abuse and two or three get broken each year. We have no sentimental attachment to them, as they are just tools for our guide business. We send them back for repair and get them back within a week.

As you can see, broken rods are an integral part, of the angling life. Don’t let a broken rod get you down. They can usually be easily and economically repaired.

John Berry is a fly fishing guide for Blue Ribbon Guides in Cotter, Arkansas and has fished our local streams for over thirty years.