I think I remember when they made that rod. I believe it was in the 80's. Great rod. I have a few Orvis CFO reels in different sizes and some Hardy's. I like the CFO reels better than the Hardy, although Hardy made the CFO reels for years. They were Orvis designed reels and, in my opinion, better than the Hardy lightweights.

My "baby" Leonard is a three weight. I use it from time to time on the North Platte river for the rainbow spawn in the spring and the brown spawn in November. You don't kill fish with a lightweight rod as long as the tippet is 3X or larger. You can get them in pretty fast.

My usual big water rod is a Orvis Battenkill 6 wt. and a Leonard 6 wt.

This is a picture of double rainbows I took with the little Leonard. All trout are released unharmed. This is the one area of the river where I use the little Leonard.

Beautiful trout!

Caught this one on a 7 1/2 ft, 6 wt., Battenkill.

That’s a big fish on that relatively small rod John. I’ll bet you had some fun with him. I have the same rod, a Battenkill 7 ½ ft., 6 weight. It’s one of my two go to rods for big fast rivers in Wyoming, Montana and Colorado.

The first picture is my Orvis Battenkill 6 wt. with a Snake River fine spot cutthroat. The second picture is double fine spot cuts taken with my Battenkill 6 wt. I am on a quest to catch all the remaining cutthroat sub species in their native environments and only true aboriginal fish, no stocked fish. I've got five sub species and need only two more to complete my slam. I never use guides and enjoy figuring things out for myself. it's great fun.

Spring you say?? Here's what my spring was yesterday. This snow fell in less than 30hrs. I was busy from 0400 to 4pm dealing with it. Today is going to be a lazy day off for sure! I still can't take my car out of the driveway as I'd not make it back up the hill to home. It's going to take at least a week to plow everyone out around town.

That’s a bummer for springtime!





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Part of last Tuesdays catch, 'gills are in the upper shallow ends of the ponds.
Catch and release to hot grease! Crappies and bass fishing a little slow, but may improve this week, will get out at least a couple times this week, and combine it with turkey scouting.

I profess no great skills with the fly rod, but will bring it out when the gills start to spawn.
Right now "garden hackle" is the bait of choice.

Spring isn't here! It was -13 this morning and is supposed to go to -30 tonight.

Richard looks like the old ground hog told his storey wrong at least for you...I have mowed my grass twice already....make us some snow ice cream...charlie