[Terry Coging]

As some of you know I have a fascination for long boat rods. By long, I mean 15' plus.  After over 300 hours of developing the technique of  what I call 'wafting' it has become my preferred method.  I get odd looks from other boat  fishermen who wonder why I am using a salmon rod on the reservoirs.  My mates know what I am up to and their derision and wisecracks stopped some time ago. They could see that I was enjoying it and catching my fair share.  The 15' Wafter is not a  salmon rod.  I only use a 2 or 3 weight line and have developed techniques using different leader and fly configurations to suit varying conditions.  The journey has just started though.  The 15' + long rods offer opportunities for different tactics that cannot be achieved so effectively with 9 or 10 footers, even 11 1/2 footers. For me, and hopefully others 'times are a changing'. 

[Euan Innes]

Pictures Terry, PICTURES!
Dying to see the rod and if you have any of you using it get them on here.

Euan

[Terry Coging]

Pictures Terry, PICTURES!
Dying to see the rod and if you have any of you using it get them on here.

Euan

I'm working on it Euan 

[Jeff Donovan]

As an old saying goes, "there's more than one way to skin a cat". Who says that the same can't apply to catching a fish? Look forward to the progression of this thread. 

[Terry Coging]

As an old saying goes, "there's more than one way to skin a cat". Who says that the same can't apply to catching a fish? Look forward to the progression of this thread. 

Yes Jeff, I've thought about that old saying quite a lot recently.  I've gone through many phases of fly fishing during the past 50 years (I only started when I was 30 - it was coarse fishing before that) and come around to thinking about basics again and questioning why fishermen favour certain methods. I have found the wafting project quite refreshing. It has opened up opportunities for innovation. It is not the Holy Grail but it is not the 'same old, same old' as many of us go through over the years.
Anyway the weather looks good so I'm off down the reservoir to try something out that I was thinking about yesterday.

[Jeff Donovan]

How did you get on Terry? Regards to the many phases, what worked originally for the Macedonians will probably work today, it's us as anglers who want to add the confusion.   

[Terry Coging]

Jeff,I only netted 4 and dropped a few. It was not a wafting day being flat calm and the reservoir having a heavy algae bloom.  My plan was to try different anchor flies. When using a team of three with long droppers a good anchor fly allows the top dropper, then the middle dropper, to work for longer. It is so wind dependent though but trials do have to be done in all conditions for anything to be learned. As it happened the anchor fly was swallowed by a rainbow that had to be dispatched. Spooning showed it to be full of 2cm roach fry.  I was obviously fishing to wrong method for the day but still managed the rod average. The anchor fly in this case was a gold head daddy.

[Terry Coging]

Just an apology for not posting any photos of the Wafter 15 yet.  Just need to get the transfers and graphics right. 
I've been using the Wafter 15' prototype almost exclusively this year on the Lochs, Loughs and reservoirs, trying out different things every trip. My initial thoughts were based on the fact that a longer rod would fish a team of flies 'on the lift' more effectively. This have proven to be the case. That is all very well but on some days my boat partners were doing better by pulling a team of wets or a streamer, or fishing dries, as was the case this week. I started the day with a gold head anchor fly on the point, a snatcher in the middle and a daddy on the top. Had 3 lifting the snatcher but my boat partner had taken 6 on the dry. I should have known better than to put a team of 3 dries on like my partner.  I kept getting multiple rises. Two and sometimes three at a time, mostly missed but broken twice when two, or in one case three fish hooked.  This happened a lot in the highlands and no problem with fish up to 12 oz, but with three  2lb + fish there is no chance.  So, why was I getting so many multiple rises compared to my (very experienced) boat partner? He concluded that it was about presentation.  The wafted team alighted as one, due to the turnover being completed well above the water. Yes, the pro experts can do this but we are not all pro experts!
I was trying out a Barrio #3 Small stream at the time. Excellent for the job since only 20' max of main line is needed out of the rod tip and the running line is nice and fine.