Orvis rod question????

[caorach]

I've just promised my Orvis rod to a chap who has a daughter taking up fly fishing. I never use the rod and haven't fished it in years and I would guess I bought it early in the 1990s. Just out of interest I was wondering if anyone knows anything about it (I'm giving it to him so there's no money involved but I'm nosy)

The rod is an 8'6" for a 6 weight and on the tube it says "Western Traveller" it is a 4 piece. It also has a big sticker on the tube saying superfine graphite.

To be honest I never really got on with it so when this chap was saying his daughter was going to try some fishing, and they are going to camp by a loch somewhere in Scotland, it seemed a shame that I was sitting looking at a rod that he could be using plus when I was starting up a lot of people gave me stuff that got me going and I couldn't have done it without them so really I'm just passing on favours.

[Highlander]

The Western series of rods appeared in the early/mid 80s. I have used but did not own a Western 3 & a fine rod it was. Believe in was a bit stiffer than other rods that Orvis marketed at the time. The Traveller is just a four piece version.  I believe the number on the butt cap should give you year of manufacture.
Tight Lines

[johnny boy]

I had a western (not traveller), 10' #7, brilliant rod to fish with, light (for the time) and mid flex, which is how i like my rods, lasted me about 15 years until it became a bugger to separate with all the wear and tear on the sections.  It cost me £300 which was a lot then but when i fell on it and broke it i got a replacement section in the post about 3 days later, no questions asked.

[caorach]

Thanks for the info as I really know nothing about the gear.

Interestingly the chap it is going to is, basically, a complete stranger to me but through other connections he has access to a little loch in Southern Scotland, he is from England. He's been taking his daughter up to camp (only once so far I think) with some fishing and eating what they catch but he appears to know nothing at all about fishing and has no gear, they were throwing a mepps from what I can gather and he reported that the loch held trout and that some he was catching might have been 1lb in weight. He seemed quite pleased with this. They caught a few fish in total, maybe 6.

After some further discussion the chap sent me a few photos of his daughter (maybe 10 years old at a guess) with some of the fish they released and the one they kept. To say the photos were interesting understates it and he then said that he measured the biggest fish and it was 20 inches long. Now, it isn't a hugely fat fish but it is a big solid 20 inch fish and the released ones in the photos are big solid fish as well. Estimating weight from a photo is heading for disaster but at a guess the "wee" ones they put back were good 1.5 - 2lb fish. They are wild, unstocked, fish.

I suspect he genuinely simply has no idea at all about fishing or such things so he's now got a decent Orvis rod at no cost and his own little secret loch where the trout average 2.5lb :-)

When I first started out fishing quite a few people passed things on to me and that's what got me going so I'd be over the moon if this girl gets going with the fly rod and gets herself one of those 3lb+ trout on a wee Black Pennell and gets enjoyment from nights in the tent by a remote trout loch.

[Robbie]

Very generous of you and very fortunate for the man and his daughter to have made contact with you. Sound like a very special water, what a start in fishing!