I. Went. Fishing. (was Kabuto 8053, pt 2: A "review;" and vulgarity laced musing on dry fly purism and gearsnobbery.)

Yesterday was April 20th, 2024.

 

I went fishing.

 

I forgot what it's like to go outside the house. Also, holy FUCK did I get fucking FAT. And my feet hurt. And I don't know where any of my shit got to so I just grabbed random shit that was all teh worst shit ever for a fat fucking fuck stuck on the banks because I cant' fit into my waders and I didn't wanna wet wade coz its fucking cold and I'm a baby.

 

But.. I went fishing. So that counts, right? Shit, I still know how to do it!

 

Also here's something that was waiting as a draft from 1/10/18. I'll never complete it. Hell, I won't even READ it, but I'm gonna fuckin' post it.

 

So there you have it.

 

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After my first year or three of fly fishing, I'd settled into patterns. I only fished dry flies, or a dry/dropper with an unweighted fly 18" or so under a bushy dry, and I frequented 20' to 30' wide tree lined creeks. I was,  I think, moderately successful, at using these flies and setups and was only getting better at it. At the time, I was busy formulating my fishing timearound these two styles.

Traditionally speaking, "dry fly action" rods were fast, tip, action regardless of the material. If you look at current dictum, assholes say you fish dry flies with slow rods, and this is why they're assholes. Slow rods don't dry your flies on a cast. Slow rods aren't precision tools that generate tight loops into small targets. Slow rods don't set the hook with aplomb when you're fishing up stream and with mended line across braids. Those are all attributes of faster rods.

What slow rods do well, though, is provide that tactile and great feeling of a rod loading and unloading. They provide a more visceral enjoyment in casting your line, which is arguably the draw to a dry fly purist. The thing is, a fiberglass (or bamboo) rod can provide that feeling as you get to enjoy the feeling of the rod's loading and unloading due to the mass in the tip, the way you can feel the energy roll out your arm and down the rod and line.

Home, sweet home.

I'd spent some time looking for the right rod to fit the criteria of how and where I fish the aforementioned dry fly purist thing in small, usually forested, creeks. I'd gone from an 8' 4wt Versitex rod (fished with a SA GPX 4wt line, making it essentially a 5wt rod) to a Fenwick 756, 7'6" 6wt rod which really helped me understand that fiberglass didn't mean limp. In usage, the two rods basically handled the same, the two (or, really, one) line weight difference being lost in the way the material itself handled casting (glass versus IM6 graphite).

All of this long-winded preamble shit basically sets up my preferred choice to fish these flies in these waters: A rod that's a true medium (to med-fast, if you must), 8', AFTMA 5wt, and (for me) fiberglass. It also had to look fucking stellar because this was going to be my perfect rod. So, I ordered a Kabuto 8053 blank; based on word of mouth, it met my requirements. Now I've finished it, and fished it quite a few times, and I'm willing to tell others what I think, because I'm a big enough fuckin egotist to assume you give a shit.

And its my blog, so whatever.

Normally, people talk about build, finish, quality of parts, etc. That doesn't really apply here, as I bought a blank only and did the work on it.

I think I waited about two months after placing my order for the blank. Yasuyuki Kabuto routinely posts threads to Fiberglassflyrodders.com (home of the "what reel goes with this rod" thread, I'll speak negatively of their hivemind a little more down post), he also has a website at http://kabutorods.com/ which may or may not be a source for blanks. It arrived in a stout piece of Japanese PVC, wrapped in bubble wrap, reasonably priced and with an acceptable shipping time considering the international travel and Customs.

The blank itself is a flawless three piece affair. Each piece was arrow straight, and includes a perfectly set glass spigot. Its certainly not clear (I own fully transparent save for tinting rods), but a sort of translucent, ethereal affair. A friend of mine refers to it as "lemon popsicle." He's right. His build will also do justice to it unlike my shitty hack job.

The rod is rated for a 5wt line, and while some people suggest you need a 6wt line its important to note these people are stupid fucks. They are, simply, obsessed with having a rod that bends into the cork and is thus overloaded. There's a time and place for rods that do that, and this isn't it. Its a 5wt rod. Its supposed to be "crisp" to use parlance and shit. That's how it was designed. If you want a floppy rod, then there's plenty of people who will sell you one.

So, then, the reason someone who plunked the words "kabuto 805 review" into Google was for the following few paragraphs, which come in three types: Good, bad, and the fuck-if-I-care.

I'll do the bad first, its a shitty rod to cast a brace of wets down and across. Period. You want a glass rod to do that and if you have Popeye-like arm strength, let me suggest the South Fork C9052 (read about it here). Sure, you can flip out a wet fly or two when needed (and I have, alot), but if its what you want to concentrate on, this isn't the rod for you. I'd make a golf club reference about wedges and irons or some shit, but as you've probably just figured out, I don't know what any of that means and golf is an even stupider pastime than fly fishing, so fuck off and figure it out yourself.

Also in the "bad" side is its a stout rod. Its not that its leaden, but its not exactly what I'd call lithe, either. Its a pretty chunky rod down in the butt, and you're gonna need a bigger reel to balance it out, so if you've got Tyrannosaurus forearms, there's probably better choices.

I tried to bobber fish with jigs indicator fish with nymphs, but I couldn't really be bothered to give a fuck about it. Yeah, you can throw an indicator rigs. Whatever. Sure. I dunno, probably not with a kilogram of tungsten attached to it. What the fuck do I care? I don't. See, I just dismissed it like that. Watch how I blow off streamers, next: You can throw streamers, its a 5wt rod. I hear Kelly Galloup has some fascinatingly named flies for you to look at if that's your thing. 

So, what about the good shit? Well, the 8053 excels at dry fly fishing, though. Its everything I wanted it to be: Fast, "crisp" action that feels good to cast and excels at propelling a dry fly into tight places. Its not so limber as to cast with just a 12' leader out the tip, but you wouldn't want it to be as everything else would suffer. With only a foot or two of line, its vaguely do-able, but once you raise it to about four feet you can have actual casts, and with eight feet out the tip, you're able to have an actual

 but with a foot or two of line, it'll do-ish. If you extend that to four feet of line, you can have an actual cast, and from eight on up, you're into tight forecasts with the accuracy to slip it under branches or through holes. It bends on a good cast into the upper-middle of the rod, just the right amount of limberness