Wrighter

I've bought a few from Mike's Reel Repair for homemade reels, they install pretty easily into a hole in a reel. https://www.mikesreelrepair.com/reel-tuning-upgrades/handle-upgrades/

I have carried on my fly rod and also my sling pack quite a few times with Air Canada and West Jet. Never had issues other than them quite frequently holding me up at the security check to inspect the rod tube, fly boxes, etc. I only had freshwater gear so no large hooks. They once took my pliers due to the tip of the tool exceeding some length. That was after getting through security with the same pliers at least 5 - 10 times. When I did this, I always had my single rod tube and a full carry on bag too.

I would do Atlantic Salmon on the Gaspe Peninsula in Quebec. Not sure if you can fly directly there. Maybe some Atlantic salmon rivers in Quebec are close to an airport, not sure. I have never done it but it looks like an awesome place to fish for a species that is somewhat "exotic". I'd love to do it if I had the chance. I had to move to Toronto two years ago so I've fished there a fair bit and wouldnt really recommend southern Ontario for fishing outside of "trout season" which is late April to end of September. Even in Ontario's trout season, I probably wouldn't leave southern Alberta to fish there. The steelhead come up right around now and most rivers do have good numbers, but out of trout season you're constrained to ~1km of river that you will be sharing with plenty of other fisherman. I'd say it is overrated unless you don't mind fishing shoulder to shoulder with a bunch of people who just want to bonk steelhead. You'd probably have a more enjoyable time fishing the bow even if its something you've done hundreds of times. That being said, if you were to come up and fish mid week, you might find some uncrowded water. Good times could be had, and there definitely are lots of steelhead to catch.

Pm sent! You can probably make many improvements to my design, it was my first go at it. Funny thing when I was blindly searching for a good one-way bearing to use, I ended up settling on a one-way bearing that was made for RC cars. Ended up being the same one-way bearing that Nautilus uses haha. Hatch uses a different one way bearing, also made for RC cars. Yes it is an iron ring, finished at uofc a few years ago. I almost did a fly reel design as my 4th year project but unfortunately I was the only fisherman in my group so others weren't so inspired to do that project haha

Incredibly cool! Where do you get your plans? Design any from scratch? I made my own reel from scratch but had to outsource the machining work. Would have been cool to make some parts myself like you have done, but I don't have a shop. I also utilized some cnc lasercutting in my design. Art done by myself based on some good memories from the river. If you're interested in tossing a disc drag system in one of your reels I might be able to help out with a design. The disc drag in this reel worked out great. Very smooth and trouble free so far in 2 seasons of use

Tying a bunch if my favorite today - "light" Elk Hair Caddis. I leave out the wire and simply wrap the hackle over the dubbing. With size 10, 12, 14, i find the hackle is plenty strong on its own and I've don't think it has ever come apart on me. As a result you get the same sectioned body look and no wire to add weight. I usually tie this with 3/0 thread so I can really synch down on the thick elk bull body hair and get lots of flare. I find this version very good at staying up in all water types and It stays afloat nicely with a size 16 or 18 dropper as well.

More project spam... i had a great summer fishing my reel, it helped me land a few beasts over 24" and brought on many new good memories on the river. I did some more work this winter to change the finish and add a few more components. I hand polished all existing parts, replaced all plastic parts with CNC Aluminum parts, and designed a new spool featuring some artwork of a few of my favorite spots/memories. I tweaked the drag bearings a little bit and with the new aluminum hub, it sounds and feels better than ever. The polish is so nice and clean that it's almost on the level of unfishable now but I guess I have no other option than to fish it! Enjoy

You're definitely correct, mostly just water levels being displayed everywhere. I'm not sure what's going on either but it would be nice to see some flow rates!

Thanks everyone! The trip couldn't have worked out any better, very highly recommended if you are looking for a new experience. For me, nothing beats exploring new places and catching new species. It was very cool learning the history of these subspecies and how the are all different

I had the pleasure of taking part in the Wyoming Cutt-Slam on my recent cross country road trip in mid August. As per usual with this trip, my time was limited to a few hours at each location, but the experience was amazing and took me to some places I likely would never see otherwise. Fortunately the fish cooperated and allowed me to catch the 4 native cutthroat species in day. A Headwaters Creek with Bonneville Cutthroat. Jeep-high willows all around and tons of fish. Took just one cast to catch this subspecies but I stayed around for many more. Headwaters Creek with Colorado River Cutthroat. Much more elusive but managed to catch a couple here. My favorite stop of the trip. You can drive this river from the headwaters to the bottom (and i did) - it starts as a trickle and ends looking like the highwood in run off. I fished it at a few access points in the upper sections, where at first my fly was refused by some surprisingly large Snake River cutties. I eventually managed to land a couple fish as I changed flies. It was nice to be challenged on this river, it made me like it even more. The scenery was amazing and the fishing was top quality, i'll definitely be back on this river the first chance I get. Last stop to catch some Yellowstone Cutthroat. Yellowstone park isn't very dog friendly, so this area was about the only option for me. Another amazingly scenic area with awesome red-tinged rock features and lots of willing cutts. A close second favorite. All finished, this trip was an awesome experience and i'm so glad i did it. Planning the locations to catch each species was a big part of the adventure so I haven't named any creeks and encourage any future challenge seekers to plan it your own way (Ask if you really want). Each system was uniquely awesome, and despite doing this on a Saturday in mid August, I didn't cross paths with another angler. Bonus: Stopped at a popular place near Missoula on my way down South. Lots of Rocks....

Took the scenic route from Toronto to Calgary this May long and stopped along some rivers on the way for a few hours of fishing. Minnesota Driftless Henry's Fork, Idaho Madison River, Montana Missouri River, Montana Was supposed to hit the North Platte and Snake River in Wyoming as well but the snow was dumping too hard so I moved straight on to the Henry's Fork. Wind River looked like a great place to fish too but the conditions were near their worst there. They'll be on my list for next time. The Upper Madison and the Driftless Area should be on everyone's bucket list, totally unique fishing experiences!

Thanks everyone! I'm lucky to have a home office through work which gives me access to SolidWorks, the perfect program for mechanical design like this. I have all the parts now and have tested everything, all is pretty great except for some wobble caused by using 3D printed plastic parts (black) which will be replaced now with machined parts. I'll be waiting a bit longer to fish it, but I have some new pictures of everything put together!

Hello all, Thought I would share my winter project here! I was in need of a 4 weight reel for a rod that I built, so I decided to design a reel that would suit both my 4 weight and 6 weight rod. The goal was to design a high performance disc drag reel which would cost no more than two decent fly reels. Since getting into fly fishing, I have had this dream of having a fly reel on the market which could compete with the best. Maybe someday! I used the info and formulas from the "2015 5 weight Fly Reel Shootout" by Trident Fly Fishing to determine my specs and adjust them. The final design had: -4.25oz Approx -3.5" OD -Spool volume of approx 4 in^3 for the 4 weight spool, and about 4.5 in^3 for the 6 weight spool -Line pickup approx 7.6" per turn The reel has a disc drag system with alternating Teflon/Rulon and Stainless Steel drag washers and has plenty of adjustment, and will be sealed. Other features include an incoming and outgoing click sound, easy spool changing, and pretty much everything else a normal fly reel would have. As my motivation for this project was high, I didn't have many issues designing the reel. Most things just took time and some research (and a background in designing stuff with CAD). The main challenges were designing a drag system to be adjustable AND sealed, as well as making it affordable. The first design was going to be fully CNC machined, but it would have cost upwards of $1500 from a Chinese manufacturer, which is way more than I was willing to spend considering it may not even work properly. I worked through a few more design iterations and ended up coming to the conclusion that I would have to do some unconventional things to make it affordable/worthwhile. I decided to utilize a lot of CNC laser cut parts in the design, which can achieve precision similar to CNC machining, although they lack the ability to do 3D features on a single part. In the end, i was able to design something that would function well and look cool (to me at least). All parts are either CNC laser cut or machined from 6061-T6 Aluminum or Stainless Steel. I wanted it to stand out and be unique, so I designed it to have fish graphics laser cut into it, featuring a rainbow, brown, brook, cutthroat, and bull trout - basically, the trout we fly fish for in Alberta. Some "wave" features joined them to provide structure. Below are some renders of the design: Most of the parts have now arrived and I am totally satisfied with them all. The drag system has been tested and feels very smooth and strong, and all parts fit together exactly as they should. It really would have sucked if it was a disaster If all goes well, I will have a fish pulling line off this thing by the end of next week! Next winter I will likely design a second housing with a different graphic, as well as play around with more finishing techniques (polishing, etching, anodizing). For now I'll just enjoy it! I'll upload a picture when its completely finished. Cheers!

I learned to fly fish on the bow. My first season I pretty much exclusively fished 2 nymphs under an indicator. First nymph something heavy like a wire worm, second a prince nymph, pheasant tail, or San Juan worm. A wire worm is a good higher nymph as it gets the flies down to the bottom fast and also gets lots of eats. It also makes it so you don't need a split shot, which will avoid lots of tangles. Before I could cast well, I would let line out downstream to start, allowed tension to form, and then would just lift the rod tip and lob my rig upstream at my target. Let it drift to the end, wait a few seconds and repeat. Line management early on will be the biggest struggle, so using a hopper up top will not be very effective as it will likely be dragging lots anyways. The main thing to work on while fishing this way is mending line every drift so that your indicator isn't dragging, and adjust the height of the indicator frequently so that your flies are ticking bottom. The indicator should twich every drift or few, it's either a rock or a fish so set every time. Your line management will improve tons over a season and you will learn where fish like to hangout in the river. Once I mastered this technique, I started fishing dry flies more, and I was alot more prepared

Please do let us know! Im in the same situation and I messaged the CPs account on this forum a couple days ago and am awaiting a reply. Any info to help would be great, thanks