Very nice! Any chance we could get a detailed fishing report from you? I'd be very curious how "Driggs-y" glass can be. (And BTW, what reel is it sporting?)

I'll start by saying that I originally did intend to buy a bamboo rod to fish smaller west slope Cascades streams like the one pictured. The flow you see in these pictures is as low as that particular stream gets. More often, there's quite a bit of water channeled through such streams, so it's not usually "subtle" fishing. I wind up using a mix of dries and streamers, and casts are a mix of roll, side-arm, and other creative stuff into pockets of heavy water with complex currents. Most fish are 8-14" cutts and 'bows with an occasional 18" rainbow and even larger bull trout. Wimpy 3-weights don't cut it.

Anyway, I had planned to have Chris Carlin or AJ Thramer build a Driggs for me. But I have owned some nice cane and am afraid to fish it in such places. It's tough wading and falls are a guarantee. So I called Mike McFarland and he understood immediately what I wanted.

In short, it's a great rod and does exactly what I had hoped it would do. I'd say its roll casting is probably the best of any rod in that class I have ever fished. You just snap your wrist and the line goes where you point the rod. It's really easy roll casting. Overhand casting short and middle distances is great too, though range is limited to around 50' with the Cortland Sylk DT-5 I use. The rod casts small streamers well, though not surprisingly, swinging them in heavy current challenges the soft rod to stay in control. The tip just bows heavily in such situations.

The reel is a Marryat CMR 56 ... with one modification. I had Bill Archuletta machine a custom spool counter-weight. Strangely, the CMRs don't come stock with those, so when you rip line off, you really feel the wobble. Bill set me up for $15, and now it's just about as smooth as a Ross San Miguel. Marryats are, in my opinion, a real steal at around $100. Bill now stocks these counter-weights. I have a CMR 34 as well, with the same Archuletta modification. Great reels.

Nice, nice, real nice ...

Just curious, which glass rod did you use before you received this beauty?

NB

Thanks for elaborating on what is one of the nicest set-ups I've seen. (BTW, be careful posting pics of all that beautiful water ... there's a host of us drought-ridden Southerners who wouldn't mind pulling up stakes and doing the Joad thing until we reached the Promised Land. )

My next custom built five weight will be a seven foot parabolic ... and of course will be a McFarland Spruce Creek ... but I've got a couple of other rods I want to add first.

Do you have bill's contact info? I am in need of a Marryat counterweight.Thanks

[Here it is www.archuletasreelworks.com Bill is an easy guy to work with - Tom]