After that, I finished teaching myself all the lessons I’ve mentioned above, with a range of other different rods from 2- to 6-weights, and by the time I looked seriously at the question again, Orvis had launched the Helios 3.Ī rifle in a world of muskets, they said. In 2015, soon after George Daniel published his American streamer bible Strip-Set, I got in touch with him to compare notes and ask which rods he rated, and banked the valuable intel that he preferred the Orvis Helios 2 in a 10-foot 5-weight. Ideally, it needs to be powerful enough to throw a heavily weight-forward line and reasonably large fly without collapsing, yet light enough that you don’t feel you’re swinging a club all day: fast and accurate, to hit small targets and impart fish-grabbing movement to the fly, yet sensitive enough to feel delicate takes (not all streamers get eaten with a classic smash-and-grab) and even do backup service as a dry fly or nymphing rod in an emergency.Īdd to all that my own particular preference for 10-foot rods on almost any water, and yes, I think that’s a unicorn I’m hunting for. Over the years, I’ve fished streamers on a lot of different rods (some of them quite unsuitable, but unavoidable under particular circumstances) and I’ve come to understand that a good streamer rod is a bit of a unicorn. I’ve also managed to save more than one trip to the Alps with big bunny streamers in dirty or rising water. My very first trout from the Wandle, for example, was lured by a little black Clouser Minnow, while a similar pattern swung downstream into the tunnel under Manchester airport’s runway helped me make this one of the most iconic locations of Trout in Dirty Places. The kind of fish-imitating flies known as streamers have fascinated me for what feels like forever – maybe ever since I was sitting in my high chair at my parents’ kitchen table looking at the pictures in 1970s LL Bean mail order catalogues, which I now suspect were full of classic Maine-style streamer patterns like Carrie Stevens’s Gray Ghost.įorty-something years later, streamers still aren’t universally accepted on this side of the Big Pond, mostly because of the Victorian values that continue to hang around British fly-fishing culture – but where the rules (or lack of them) have permitted, these flies have given me some of the best moments of my fishing life so far. Also, I have lifted, moved and fought cumbersome stripers, bluefish and bonefish with the rod, leading me to believe their claims that the new design, resins and building techniques do, in fact, equate to a stronger, lighter more accurate fly rod.Theo Fly-fishing, Streamers, Tackle Unicorns and other streamer rods: Reviewing the Orvis Helios 3 They use machines and computers to take some of the guesswork out of their strategy and design. Orvis has taken a scientific approach to the design of the Helios 3. As far as Orvis’ claim that it is 20% stronger than it’s predecessor, I do not doubt it for two reasons. I have no problems loading the rod for close shots and have yet to run out of power for longer shots. With extensive testing thus far, I have found the Helios 3D to be an absolute pleasure to cast and to lift and move fish with. Sage X and Scott Meridian, we are looking at you. It stands at the top of the heap with some of the industry’s finest fly rods to date. Properly lined with a 9-weight Rio Direct Core Flats Pro line, the lightweight stick packs power and accuracy. The 3D is nothing short of a state of the art casting and fish fighting tool. I have fished the 9-weight Helios 3D for the past several months, starting with a windy day in the Bahamas in March and then frequently on the flats of Long Island this Spring.
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