I was looking for a reel to match the light brook rod that I recently picked up. This American Phlueger President 2056 Fly Reel is light and strong with good looks too. Hopefully when loaded with some line that I'm expecting soon it will balance the light rod well. I've greased it up with Hot Sauce and switched from left to right-hand wind.

The 2056 reel is 3-1/2" in diameter, it has a 31/32" spool width and weighs 5.8 oz. It can hold up to #6 line with 30yds. of 20lb breaking stain backing. I'll be loading it with Monic All-Weather clear fly line 4 WT and some 30lb backing that I have lying around.

Phlueger President 2056Features:

• Large arbour spool design
• Forged, machined and anodized aluminium frame and spool
• Oversized ball bearing and one-way clutch bearing
• Patented center-disc drag system for total drag control
• Convertible left/right hand retrieve
• Large rosewood knob
• Easy-release spool switch
• Protective storage bag included

Labels: Fly line, Fly reel, Monic, Phlueger, President 2056

Posted by Doug at 14:40 | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

I had a small swarm of Upwinged Flies in the kitchen yesterday. Yep, the kitchen. These were either Large Dark Olive (Baetis rhodani), Medium Olive (Baetis vernus) or Pond Olive (Cloeon dipterum) flies. It is probably a Baetis spinner though showing the large turbinate eyes.

I'm not an expert on flies and there are so many different types of these flies - what could they be exactly? No running water nearby, only my little garden pond out the back.

Posted by Doug at 14:34 | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Down at the pond the other day, I bumped into a local fishing with an orange popper that reminded me of the Burning Man pattern that I had seen recently on Global Fly Fisher [link: Burning Man]. They describe it as:

A strange but efficient foam popper for all kinds of strange fish.

It looked like an easy pattern to make, so I had a go.


I used some orange floating fly line for the legs, orange braid and black cotton for other parts. These four variants took about 20 minutes to knock-up and I have no idea if they will work, but they should send all the right signals to the fish. Apparently you need a few as the fish reduce the length of the legs quite quickly. That sounds like good advice.

Posted by Doug at 12:23 | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Tom and I use polarised fishing glasses to help us spot fish under the water. Mine are clip-on polarised lenses that attach to my normal glasses magnetically. I can flip them up when I need to see something without the dark lenses. Tom's glasses are from Decathlon. They do the job well, but have a slightly less polarising effect than mine.


I bought my Magna Flip glasses from an eBay store: here.

Posted by Doug at 13:17 | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Here is a short video clip of a Tench in a local pond, filmed with the polariser filter.



The Tench
The tench or doctor fish (Tinca tinca) is a freshwater and brackish water fish of the cyprinid family found throughout Eurasia from Western Europe


More info:
Wikipedia (English): Tench
Wikipedia (French): Tanche

Posted by Doug at 09:28 | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

I've recently added a Polariser Filter to my video camera and it really works well to reduce water reflections, cutting out the virtically polarised reflected light.

Check ou this short video clip showing how effective it is.

Posted by Doug at 19:34 | Permalink | Comments | links to this post