The good – a nice day boulder hopping up a small stream.  I started out with dries and the trouts responded with vigor.  The fish were really looking up, probably due to the chill in the air.  It seems Fall is coming early in this year of non-Summer in the PNW.  The temps and rain feel more like late Sept or early-October than the tail end of Summer.  It’s a weird atmosphere on the streams – cool temps but the trees still haven’t turned because they haven’t had the trigger of shortening days…

After making the turn and heading back downstream, I tied on a softhackle with a small tungsten bead and started picking up some nice fish on a wet-fly swing.  Then I snapped the tip off my favorite trout rod.  Wait, I’m getting ahead of myself…

Back-story – I have a custom Burkheimer 389-4 that I really like for small stream trout fishing when I think there will be a little wind or I might fish wets.  The shaft is actually marked 2/3/4 and it’s true.  With a 2wt line, it feels like a modern fast action rod, with a 3wt line it has a nice moderate-fast action and will really aerialize some line for a 3wt rod.  My favorite is to use a WF 4wt line which gives it a slower feel and makes it very easy to fish tight quarters, single-hand spey, etc.

About  month ago, I was fishing the little Steffen 2/3 fiberglass and Angus was using the Burkie.  We bushwhacked through some pretty dense cover to get to a little visited spot that I like to fish when flows are lower.  On the hike out, he managed to break off the tip top.  I sent it off to be repaired and they had it back to me in a couple weeks.

The bad – This was my first day out after the repair and I managed to break the tip off again…  Back to Burkheimer for another repair.  Of course, given the weather trends, I’ll be switching over to spey rods and steelhead so it’ll be next Spring before I break it again…