The Northern California Fly Fishing Board

When I was in 8th grade, I asked my dad for a backpacking fishing rod for Christmas to take on my boy scout and family camping trips. He got me an Eagleclaw 4pc 7.5ft spin/fly combo rod where the handle converts from spin reel to fly reel setup. I used a spinning reel to throw spinners for below surface fishing and then put on a fly reel for dry fly fishing.

Not long after that on one of our summer camping trips, I caught the biggest fish of the trip on a dry fly.

Later when I was in college, I took my girl friend (future wife) on a hike to Ostrander lake in Yosemite. About mid afternoon while we were relaxing by the lake, I saw trout starting to feed on the surface. So setup the same rod with a dry fly and proceeded to catch about 10 trout over an hour or so while freezing from standing in snow melt fed lake (month was June). My wife still vividly remembers that to this day.

I still have that rod and my son learned how to fly fish on it earlier this year. That rod is now his favorite fly fishing rod as well and used it all summer long on small streams with great success.