I bought the Igniter 697-4 it was so stiff I could barely get it to load, I even went up to a RIO Grand WF7F and it loaded but felt more like a 7 wt rod, not really sure what this EX FAST rod is for, I mainly fish Smallmouth and Steelhead, young the TFO Pro III 9' #6 and Love it, Loads and casts well.

Great video. No rambling about useless junk, just straight knowledge

Just tried this reel out at my local shop. Will be going on my next 3w small water rod!

These now start @ $139? Sheesh

@tridentflyfishing Ben, I’ve been trying to buy two rods from you. I left a message with one of your associates to contact me. I want to support your company and these great reviews you put out. However, it’s now been 2-3 months and I never heard back from you.

Thanks for the review Ben, I was holding my breath in hopes you would say Orvis was also making a Spey sized Battenkill. I still have my old V clicker and it works great although it doesn’t get used as often anymore.

I actually just purchased this for an inexpensive glass rod, comes in tomorrow. Hopefully it’s a nice pair.

Been wearing hippies and wading pants for years. No more chest waders most waters unless huge water. Wading pants will suffice and are way easier when you need to see mother nature. And wading pants and hippies are far cheaper.

for a growing glass rod market, this is a great reel, dry fly and wet fly anglers, it's an excellent build and quality reel

For a machined trout reel, it's a good, reliable click pawl reel. Spending $400 or$500 for a click pawl trout reel is a bit overboard, no matter how nice. I have a few Battenkill reels and the older ones sound almost the same . As for reeling in 100 feet of line; you only have to do it when you put the line on. If you have 100 feet of fly line out on a trout stream; brother, you're not catching that fish. Great review.

It’d be nice if it was machined aluminum at that price. Happy with my Ross Colorado. Thanks

stunning rendition of my favorite!

Tried these compared to my old and to be honest nothing overly “new”. In fact my old ones feel a little thicker. I’m sure some simms rep or fanboy will say they’re a better fabric now but the old ones feel more puncture proof. I’ve played with some of the newer simms waders and they definitely puncture faster than my old.

Surprised people really care about the small white label on the rod, it’s a great talking point when you see anyone fishing it, such smart marketing tactic for orvis.

Yes, I'm definitely going to upgrade Just have to do a few more guide trip to have enough money

I remember paying $700 for my g4z waders back in 2010. Still working great!

Hey Trident. Great appraisal of Copal Tree lodge, looks like you guys really enjoyed your time there. A friend of mine and I stayed in San Pedro, Belize, this past March for a week of permit focused fishing. Our hosts, staff, food and lodge were all excellent. Although your location is further south, we traveled basically the same path and stayed in the same country. We got bonefish when permit weren’t cooperating and shots at some baby tarpon that looked big to me! I took many of the flies from your video of this subject and we each actually caught one permit each on the last day. I’m definitely going back again, but with my wife and this review hits many marks. Thanks for showing us this beautiful location! Happy travels.

No friend I use a book for added drag etc ...

What about a 10 ft 6 wt? LOL. I'm just trying to justify my recent purchase of one....

Chinese junk. The seals fail.

I know that I am going to get some negative responses by the viewers, which is fine. Without joking around is there anywhere that there will be a lodge in saltwater for poor people like myself. I fly fish just as seriously as any one on this earth. I am not saying anything bad or negative about people who do have money that get to travel around to the beautiful places. Believe me, I’m not trying to be a smart ass, just looking for a place that has deals for our poor anglers. How about some recommendations for the people in my world. Love trident and all humans who use fly rods and reels. All u other fishermen I couldn’t give a dam about your stinky baits and lazy asses. Peace out an rock and roll. 🎸🎣🏄‍♂️

👍🏻👍🏻

I dont understand how people can be so butthurt about something as trivial as color of the logo😂

Really enjoyed this one, hope you will make some more "retro rod/reel" videoes in the future :) lot of great tackle from the past, like my old Sage TCX 15ft 10wt...

I have a Guru S 7+ on a 6wt rod that I use in saltwater. It has been completely submerged several times and is still going strong. Good reels and a great drag.

Very interesting tie Karl and the end result was much cleaner looking than what I expected. Nice tie! A much simpler tie that will get you that "low to the water" effect and one I think you should demonstrate is Eric Otzinger's Hot Creek Caddis. It's tied without the palmered hackle on the body and the sparse parachute style hackle is wound from back of the wing tie-in position around the front of the hair head.This splays the hackle out around fly much differently than a normal parachute hackle. I usually only use two wraps (use more for wraps for fast water) to get the desired effect. The fly always seems to look a little messy but it gives a different impression from underwater than other flies and fish really like it. I used to teach schools on the Arcularius Ranch in the 90's and we'd take the students over to nearby Hot Creek for one of those days (4-day school). Eric came up with this fly while he was working at Marriott's Fly Shop in Fullerton (LA area) and I came across it while doing a check-out guide trip to certify an Orvis Endorsed Guide for the area. He provided that fly and we used it to excellent effect. That fly worked great on Hot Creek, the Upper Owens, and also the lower Owens (below the dam). I then started using it everywhere using about 4 turns of parachute hackle on it for faster waters instead of the 2 turns of hackle that I used on spring creeks. It's a much faster fly to tie, sits low in the water, and is very effective. If you get a chance Karl, I think that would be a good fly for you to demonstrate in a video. You can even tie it down in a size 18 on a Tiemco 101 hook (wide-gap, straight eye dry fly hook). Caddis in my neck of the woods come in sizes 12 through 16 (size 6 for the October Caddis) but I have seen them smaller than that back east. If you want to make a mayfly imitation out of it, just add a tail and use a sparser wing. By the way if you need a low-riding fly while you are fishing, don't hesitate to take your scissors or snips and trim off the bottom of your fully-hackled standard dry fly, turning it into a "half-hackled" fly. That will drop any high-riding fly right down onto/into the surface film. You can always tie up some of the "correct fly" for the occasion that night back at the house or campground.

Easy peasy. Thanks for the walk through. Saved me some money doing this myself.

Sorry, trying to say that I have, I believe, a 3 wt Ari. It has a 0 below the two fish on the frame. Didn’t know they were worth that much. Obviously no longer use, but it was a good reel.

Blast from the past. Early 90’s I was Wading long key flat for bonefish. There was another angler wading the flat, using an Ari T Hart. He took his first bonefish. I got pictures of it and sent them to him. Special memory.

to me nail knot looks cleaner.

Superb !!! 😁

Its a very good and high quality rod. I use 7 wt 10 ft for seatrout fishing in sweden. It can stand the wind and casts great with rio coastal seatrout line. The only drawbacks are the weight and swing weight which are on the heavy side despite the name "ultralight"

Got it. Beautiful but heavy.

Kudos on some of the best videos on the sport . I personally appreciate the countless hours and energy invested in your videos. thank you

don't all waders leak eventually?

I'm so confused about how to wade with these boots during winter. If the water is in the 40s let's say and weather is upper 30s, how do I wear Korkers wading boots and keep my feet dry in cold weather? I have a wet suit pants and vest that i want to use in winter with Korkers wading boots. Do I find waterproof socks for winter? I know the boot will bring water in, and I assume I shouldn't be wet wading in winter.. 2nd question, I hear the soles can come off when in use on the Korkers. How often or how likely am I tobhave sole issues with Korkers? I fish in Tennessee rivers near Smokys where there are large slimy rocks, so I need something not to slip and just ordered a pair of Korkers for myself and a pair for my wife. What am I missing here?

Hi Ben Great Video. Have you ever tried the Marksman 9ft 6 wt?

How does this rod compare with the new orvis recon? I’m deciding between the two. From your review the recon sounds better but the blitz has a higher Poseidon score

Great review. I don't think that casting 80 feet with a bonefish taper is sensible since the taper doesn't support casts at that distance. The casts at 40 to 60 feet is where you need to look in an 8 weight with a flats taper line. How does it compare to an Orvis Recon which is in the same price range?

What’s the difference between the R8 regular 8wt and the R8 Salt 8wt?

metolius!

Have you put a 150plus pound tarpon on it yet? If not.. you shouldn’t say it’s not for big tarpon unless you want to. Handles large tarpon (120+) extremely well. This reel Was meant for the most extreme anglers searching for giant fish. By the way that’s more of a 12+ WT than a 9-10. Drag speaking not spool size. Silent retrieve is great for night fishing!

I casted a 7wt Helios D and a TFO Axiom II-X. I took home the Axiom II-X. It casted further (dumped the entire line) and more accurately for me. You even get recoil guides with the TFO. I don't like the single locking reel seat on the Helios, I prefer the double locking seat. For $1098? I'll pass.

Is it ok if I don’t share it with anyone

3

How do you tie with mono thread without turning it into a twisted mess? I'm finding it twists more with every wrap. It doesn't seem like you're untwisting it.

Rocking that tie and well dressed! Also good advice.

on another note, sometimes you'll have to deal with some unruly quill wings that just want to stand straight up in the air, or at least too far away from the hook. A simple solution to that is to hold the tie spot of the wing, pull the wing down by the hook and push it slightly towards the tie in position. Then push a little hump in the feather there (doesn't need to be big hump). Then re-grab the front of the hump with your left hand (presuming you tie with your right hand), and with your right hand, stroke the quill wings from that hump to their tips. This will actually re-align feather to hold that lower position. This was a life-saver for me when I first started tying quill-wing wet flies because you can only re-tie those wings once or twice more before they are no longer usable and you don't need to re-tie them at all with this method The reason that works is those fibers on the quill wings zip together with each other much like a zip-lock bag. So this is like sealing a zip lock bag with a space at one end because you mis-aligned it, only you did it on purpose with the wing quills.

Hey Karl, I've never seen anyone spear the one side of the wing, line up the tips and spear the other side of the wing like that. That's a brilliant move. I often struggle to get the tips lined up and then grasp the butts without displacing them. Thanks for another great tip!

Traditionally that fly actually had a "wet-fly hackle" wound around before the wing was mounted instead of just a throat hackle. That gave the wings a little support when they were mounted and more fibers to move in the water as you swung across the currents. However another method has been used since the 1960's that was developed by Charles DeFeo after he retired. It would take a feather and snip the quill center out of it leaving a "V" notch in the feather fibers a bit longer than you'll need for the throat hackle. You would then strip the quill below the fullness of barbs you need to make up the throat hackle and snip off the excess leaving yourself 1/4" to 1/2" of bare stem that you can grasp with your fingers. Using that bare stem, place it underneath the hook and take two moderately tight wraps around it. Then pull the quill towards the hook eye slowly until you have the tips of the throat hackle even with the tip of the hook or slightly longer than that. Then, unwrap one wrap, pull the thread straight down to tighten the remaining wrap without twisting your material and then use two more tight wraps to secure it. Then you can go ahead and mount the wing. That DeFeo method gives a little nicer look to the throat hackle, but honestly not that much. I used it primarily in full-dress Atlantic Salmonflies, but have also used it in trout flies. The method of applying the throat hackle here that Karl demonstrates works perfectly well and is really all you need for wet flies. It is also the quickest way to do it. The DeFeo method may look a bit nicer, but again, the trout don't care because the results are similar. Personally I still like to wind the wet-fly hackle instead of just using throat hackle. I do that by using a webby feather and folding the fibers back towards the back of the fly as I wind it around the hook.