Boris Gaspar
Last January 2019 I was in Patagonia for a two week fishing trip. January wasn’t the best time for the biggest trout to be around but I had no other choice as that was the time I had available. BTW not all trout in Patagonia are big but they are all beautiful in beautiful waters.
It was a memorable trip with three good friends from Slovakia who recently took up fly fish. One of them – Peter - now fishes and makes bamboo rods.
We caught lots of trout – rainbows and browns – in a few of the legendary places around Junin de los Andes with a guide and further south to a very remote area near the Chilean boarder self guided.
We had the good fortune to find by chance a river that sees very little fishing pressure on account of it remoteness.
I didn’t catch any trophies but beautiful browns and bows just freely rise to dry flies in clean water. My friends newish to fly fishing caught some real memorable trout and even a lake locked pacific salmon. I was great to see them experience those beautiful fish.
I can’t wait to go back again to explore further some of the remote places.
Last January 2019 I was in Patagonia for a two week fishing trip. January wasn’t the best time for the biggest trout to be around but I had no other choice as that was the time I had available. BTW not all trout in Patagonia are big but they are all beautiful in beautiful waters.
It was a memorable trip with three good friends from Slovakia who recently took up fly fish. One of them – Peter - now fishes and makes bamboo rods.
We caught lots of trout – rainbows and browns – in a few of the legendary places around Junin de los Andes with a guide and further south to a very remote area near the Chilean boarder self guided.
We had the good fortune to find by chance a river that sees very little fishing pressure on account of it remoteness.
I didn’t catch any trophies but beautiful browns and bows just freely rise to dry flies in clean water. My friends newish to fly fishing caught some real memorable trout and even a lake locked pacific salmon. I was great to see them experience those beautiful fish.
I can’t wait to go back again to explore further some of the remote places.
I’ve also been working on a few reels to repair them and to gain skills to eventually make reels.
I bought a nice 3” St George that had the agate broken and the previous owner filled the line guard with a brass wire and epoxy. So I removed the epoxy and brass wire. Took the bezel off the reel and mounted it in a collet with a collet stop that I needed to make. Cut the bottom of the bezel to allow it to sit lower so I could cut off the damaged roll over edge of the bezel.
I then mounted the agate that I bought from a supplier and spun the edge over to trap the agate. The spinning forming tool was another tool I learnt to make to complete the job.
Finally, I turned the needed brass rivet to fit the completed bezelled agate.
Making the collet stop
Opening the bezel with the spinning form tool
Agate in place ready to have the bezel edge rolled over with the form tool to capture the agate in the bezel.
Brass rivet turned for attaching the bezelled agate to the reel frame.
Completed reel ready for fishing.
JW Young Reel with red agate needs the same treatment
I recently bought a Duplicated Mark II 3 5/8” Hardy’s Perfect reel for bigger rods. Many of these issued reels were made sans line guards. Since I had a spare genuine perfect line guard I decided that it would be a nice exercise to learn new skills in reel making to fit a bezelled agate to the perfect.
I also have a Hardy’s prefect 3 1/8” so I studied it carefully to learn how it is fitted and proceeded to cut the needed space in the reel frame for the line guard.
Cutting or milling the face of the reel frame without a mill was a challenge on a lathe but I set about to learn so here’s how I did it.
Since I was using the lathe I had to mount the tool in the spindle and grind the cutting surface to get the correct cut profile.
However, the reel will need to be held rigidly in a lathe attachment vice on the cross slide.
Milling vice mounted on the cross slide.
Boring bar in the spindle for cutting the reel frame
Holding the frame rigidly in the vice with aluminium fixtures and a piece of compressed timber to give relief to the check screw.
Of course cut was the correct size and the bezel was mounted then fixed with a brass rivet through the bezel tang anchoring it to the reel frame.
The reel foot was attached and the reel was cleaned and greased ready for use. The reel on the left is the 3 5/8” reel that had the line guard fitted. The reel on the left is the smaller baby brother 3 1/8” reel.
I also have a Hardy’s prefect 3 1/8” so I studied it carefully to learn how it is fitted and proceeded to cut the needed space in the reel frame for the line guard.
Cutting or milling the face of the reel frame without a mill was a challenge on a lathe but I set about to learn so here’s how I did it.
Since I was using the lathe I had to mount the tool in the spindle and grind the cutting surface to get the correct cut profile.
However, the reel will need to be held rigidly in a lathe attachment vice on the cross slide.
Milling vice mounted on the cross slide.
Boring bar in the spindle for cutting the reel frame
Holding the frame rigidly in the vice with aluminium fixtures and a piece of compressed timber to give relief to the check screw.
Of course cut was the correct size and the bezel was mounted then fixed with a brass rivet through the bezel tang anchoring it to the reel frame.
The reel foot was attached and the reel was cleaned and greased ready for use. The reel on the left is the 3 5/8” reel that had the line guard fitted. The reel on the left is the smaller baby brother 3 1/8” reel.
Rod work over the year has been slow due to focussing on reels but I’ve decided to make a few longer rods with a PHY Martha Maree modified to 8’6” on the bench. As well as this a double hander is also in split pieces ready for the next step.
This year in March I had the good fortune to sight fish to and catch my first western lakes brown.
It was a memorable catch of the beautiful fish on a dry fly.
This year in March I had the good fortune to sight fish to and catch my first western lakes brown.
It was a memorable catch of the beautiful fish on a dry fly.