Pete Tyjas buys a new rod for low water salmon fishing. See what he thinks of the Vision Tool
Summer time salmon fishing can, at times, be really productive. On others though we’re faced with low, clear water conditions.
In normal water heights when I fish on my home river, the Taw, I mainly use a 12ft 8wt double hander. This covers just about every situation I’ll be facing.
During the summer though, I fish small double flies and last year as I fished I wondered if my 8wt line was looking a little heavy as it landed on the water of the pool I had just started fishing.
These little itches stay with you and of course get even worse over the winter when you can’t fish at all. This year with super low water I decided I’d look for a lighter line rod to fish with and having cast the Vision Tool in a heavier line weight and liking it I decided to buy the 11ft 6” 5wt version of the rod.
Being the sucker I am and also believing that if a company makes rods and also lines there is a pretty good chance that they would have tested the rod and line together to ensure it was a well balanced outfit, I also bought the Vision Ace floating shooting head too.
The rod is described by Vision as medium fast/ fast action and I’d agree. It certainly isn’t a broom stick in this length and weight.
The rod blank is as subtle as you can get with the name of the rod on the reel seat and nothing else. It has a matt finish that fits perfectly with the stealth approach I’m looking for.
The handle on this rod is cork and is of great quality.
I headed to the river to try the outfit with my wife, Emma. We’d had just a tiny drop of rain but it was enough to get us to the river and if nothing else we could try the rod out in a real fishing situation.
We thought we’d start with a standard size 8 double and we both just static roll cast to start with. The line and rod worked really well together and at one stage caught Emma out at how far she was casting. The look across to me and smile spoke volumes. We then played with some Spey casts making a variety of them and then I threw in some overheads too, just to see.
The rod performed really well. I especially like making a single Spey with it.
I know when you have bought something you want it to be good so you have justified the purchase but we both really liked it. The rod was well-balanced, quick to recover and easy to fish with.
Most of the fish we have on the Taw are in the 8 to 10lb range and I think the rod will cope perfectly with them and of course, if the water is bigger I’ll be using a heavier outfit but for low water fishing it feels like I have made the right choice.
Now all we need is some rain!
More from Vision HERE
