Guest post by Tim Pottage
Roughly a year ago I was in need of a longer rod to help with line control over the often troublesome marginal vegetation that lines the banks of the Peacock Fly Fisher’s Club beats of the Derbyshire Wye. Here there are dry fly only and no wading rules so having a longer rod really assists in being able to fish the river effectively. I was sent an Orvis Recon 10ft 3wt because I wanted something with a little more finesse than say a 4wt with the added bonus of also allowing me to Euro nymph elsewhere.
Build quality
The fit and finish of the rod are top class with a matt blank to reduce rod flash and a down locking reel seat to place the reel lower down the blank to effectively make the rod feel lighter at the tip, especially important when nymphing. Cork is of a very high standard in keeping with its price point. The reel seat locking nuts remain firmly in place once tightened, which is particularly important when your hand is often placed around the locking nuts when casting and retrieving depending on how low you place your grip.
The butt ring is placed on the butt section as opposed to the second from butt second. This is the giveaway that shows the rod is mainly designed with nymphing methods in mind. This reduces sag between the butt ring and the reel/fingers providing tighter contact to your nymphs which in turn leads to better bite detection.
Action
The action is fairly fast for both nymphing and dry fly. One issue cheaper nymphing rods have is that whilst they are soft enough to load and deliver light lines and flies they lack the backbone necessary to subdue larger fish. For dry fly it works well even with long leaders. I’ve even overlined it with a four weight line on a small stream when I needed to make very short casts but required good turnover and it performed fairly well.
This year I’ve been using the rod solely for nymphing on the Derbyshire Derwent. My set up consists of .15mm level leader 2x the rod length through to a nymph line. I’m able to load the rod fairly well even with single nymphs with 2.5mm tungsten bead although the shorter length and higher line rating (comparatively speaking for nymphing) mean that it does cast better with slightly heavier nymphs.
Short vs long nymphing rods
Obviously a shorter nymph rod such as this 10ft model has one disadvantage in that the shorter length reduces your reach during drifts meaning that you cannot fish as far out as with say an 11ft model. Conversely advantages of a shorter nymphing rod are that tip recovery is quicker and the reduced length when compared to say an 11ft model is that tip shake is dampened somewhat as the shorter length reduces the effect of hand and arm shake that gets transmitted up the blank when executing a drift meaning your take detection is better.
Summary
The Orvis Recon 10ft 3wt is a fantastic all round option for someone maybe fishing a river where both nymphing and dry fly will be used but where the angler would rather just carry one rod. As a pure nymphing tool it is perfect in all but the largest rivers we have in the UK.