Cane for beginner??

[Banksy]

It would be interesting to hear Penninelad's view on this, I know that Mark fishes Ladybower reservoir with cane rods?

[Swythyn Troutbeck]

100% sound advice from Beresford. Cane is hard work on big waters,

Troutbeck

[Santiago]

As a fairly recent convert to fly fishing I wouldn't dream of using cane. Well not without medical insurance! Especially to start with.

[Bobby Marlene]

I am a poor caster. My experience is that I can cast longer distance and more accurate with my cane rods than with my graphite rods. I do not see any reason why you should not use a cane rod on a reservoir except if you want a rod much longer than 9‘ for using extremely long leaders with 3 or more flys.
In 1936 Powell cast 164 feet with a cane rod shattering the world record of the time...

[Bobby Marlene]

Double post

[Champ]

I wanted a cane rod for early season fishing from the bank at my local 240 acre reservoir.It needed to be able to cast a 7/8 weight line and be able to throw the line to where the early season fish were away from the bank.After a little research i bought a T C Ivens Ravensthorpe rod.Tom Ivens was a keen reservoir angler and designed the rod for this purpose.I was very happy with the rod and caught plenty of rainbows with it.Later in the season when the fish are in closer i used various cane rods.My favourite being an 8 ft Hardy CC de France.
As others have said it is well worth having some lessons.Then when you are happy try a few cane rods and see how you get on.

[Mole-Patrol]

Steve,

Cane is OK on lakes and reservoirs, it's not all about distance. I recall several days where I have caught trout within a few yards of the bank, sometimes behind deep wading anglers. Much to their embarrassment! Once you've learnt to cast correctly without scaring the fish away, you'll be able to graduate to cane.

It used to amuse me how the bank anglers waded out to the tops of their waders then cast as far as they could towards the middle of the reservoir while the boat anglers drifted close to the shore and cast within inches of the bank

I had a couple of 9' 6" #6 cane rods and would not recommend them for reservoir fishing though. For me, they were best suited to wet fly or nymphing on rivers. I couldn't imagine punching a line out into a strong breeze when fishing the lee shore, using a cane rod. Far too lazy an action in my opinion.

[Penninelad]

I use cane rods for most of my fly fishing,including salmon fishing on Irish rivers.I also use cane rods for reservoir fly fishing and fish regularly on large Midland reservoirs including Rutland,Grafham & Blithfield.It builds up your muscles! my favourite reservoir rods are a James & Son "Ian Wood" 9' 7/8 weight an Egginton of Merton 9' 7/8 weight and a Sharpes 9' 6/7 weight and an Edgar Sealey "Brownie" 10' 6/7 weight.On rivers streams and small stillwaters I use a variety of rods from Cambrian Flyfishers,Fosters of Ashbourne and the full range of Milwards fly rods from the very shortest up to the Flyrover.I also like using an Allcocks Sapper.I also use fibre glass fly rods by Norris of Leamington spa and Davenport & Fordham.

If I am fishing in Ireland for pulling wet fly's from a drifting boat I use plastic rods and a Bruce & Walker " The Loch" .The extra length is handy in a boat as you are usually casting from a sitting position.Pulling wet flys all day from a drifting can be tiring on the Arms.

I have got too many rods! Can you have too many rods? No!

[Old Man River]

A few years ago, Pennine Lad invited Jeremy C and myself for a days fishing at Ladybower, I had never used a split cane fly rod before that, but did have a little experience using a 9wt one made from “the black stuff “ in the sea after Pollack and Bass, I have a cane Alcocks fly rod called “ The Colonel” which I had been gifted , and told it was about a 7 wt, maybe a bit more ?, Anyway, I pressed it into service, I did manage to land a couple of Rainbow trout using Buzzers .

Now I dont know if it was because I had previously used a heavier weight rod in the sea, or maybe I was just lucky, but I did not feel at all like the rod was overly heavy, nor did I have any aches or pains afterwards, so maybe a cane rod would not be too much of a beast for a user reservoir rod ?

OMR

[Beresford]

I have sometimes thought it would be fun to have a 9' #5 cane rod for dry fly fishing on the occasions when the fish are most obliging. However, I'm not convinced that a 10' cane fly rod would be pleasurable for me to fish with for 10 hours, have the necessary action to turn-over a 24' leader in a breeze or cope with picking up sinking lines.

One thing I constantly think when I see people making lots of false casts is how much of their day they waste waggling their flies around in the air rather than actually fishing with them. With this in mind I tend to fish a line length that I can pick-up and recast without any false casting or with no more than one false cast. Until I used a fast actioned modern rod I wasn't able to do this.