Ruby River – Maiden Voyage of Pickard 8035 (Dickerson 801510 taper)

May 2009 back to My Fishing Journal

This was the inaugural trip for a new bamboo rod received in trade from my new friend Jukka in Finland. What a wonderful day! Wildlife abounded. I saw the craziest thing with a sandhill crane and a rooster pheasant feeding side-by-side, other cranes croaking near a prime fishing hole in warning that I should stay away, and a pair of ospreys watching over the same hole. The crane and pheasant were about 10’ feet apart when I first spotted them near the road.

Rod

The Pickard 8035 (Dickerson 801510 taper) was made for a river like this. John Pickard described over the telephone shortly before this trip that his numbering convention at the time this rod was made was the length (8’0”), the number of segments (3), and line weight (5). He has since gone to numbering the rods by Dickerson’s original approach. That was the length (8’0”), the size of the first ferrule in 64ths of an inch (15), and the size of the second ferrule (10).

It casts beautifully. Jukka warned that it was slow, but had lots of backbone. He was right on the mark. Being kind of slow, myself, it fits just fine.

Water

The Ruby was clear, particularly in comparison to the nearby Beaverhead and Big Hole Rivers. Runoff hadn’t quite started and even this far below the dam, it was still relatively clear for the season.

Fishing

It was a great day of fishing. While I only landed two trout, I lost several others – probably monsters J - on strikes. The first was a smallish (12-13”) brown on the first dry fly of the season, a caddis. The second was a bit bigger brown (~15-16”), which fell to a small streamer. The latter was a good scrapper, insisting on tearing up the hole before coming ashore.