High River Keiryu

by Joshua Phillips
(East Tn)

I received my Fine Mode 450 Tuesday. Evening thunderstorms delayed fishing until Wednesday. Being the wettest spring on record, the river has been the highest I can recall, so far making for great fishing in slack water and creek mouths.

Having said that, my expectations where low for my first attempt at keiryu, and decided before hand to just get out and practice my cast get used to the rod. Starting out with split shot and a red wiggler, I soon found my baitholder style hooks were being stripped with no hook ups. Lesson learned, poor hook selection.

So I tied on a #6 weighted beadhead nymph, moved to a clear area with some nice slack water and a submerged log, third drift with pulsation, as per Chris, hooked into a fiesty Holston river small mouth, all the while my wife and 1 1/2yr old daughter 10ft behind me watching the whole thing.

After two beautiful jumps and in complete control of the little bronzeback, the excitement and inexperience fixed line fishing overcame reasoning, instead of lightly laying him on the bank, I grabbed the 6x by hand and of course it snapped.

I did not expect to go to the river and have a lifelong memorable experience my first time with a keiryu rod. There's plenty to read on the site and all the information tips and tricks, of which I used most, simply work, including the supplied tip grip (worked perfectly).

Again, thanks for supplying the knowledge and equipment I would possibly have never known about without Chris and this site.

“The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten” - Benjamin Franklin

"Be sure in casting, that your fly fall first into the water, for if the line fall first, it scares or frightens the fish..." -
Col. Robert Venables 1662

As age slows my pace, I will become more like the heron.

We've all had situations where seriously chewed up flies kept catching fish after fish after fish. It is no sin to tie flies that come off the vise looking seriously chewed up.