2012 Stripers are being caught in Maine waters

5-15-12
Hardy 8 wt pro axis put a quick turn on this fish in skinny water!!!! Quick Maine Report. Although my focus the past month or so has been Tarpon, a fun report came yesterday from a friend fishing in the Camp Ellis/ Saco area in Maine.  For a couple of hrs the crew there pick up fish at a pretty good pace and in the end his count was 14 striped bass in the 18-28 inch size range and two Shad. For early season striper fishing on a fly rod this is a good report and was followed up by a few nice photos of bright fish, and as I continue with my journey back to Maine with a flats skiff in tow from the FL Keys the positive reports.~~~   Gear Reviews. I never intended the  little gear reviews to have much traction on this blog, but the amount of emails and questions about the fly lines from airflow has been fun but also helpful and allows for some good feed back to the companies, so I decide I would continue with a few more reviews and touch base on some products that have spent some time in my skiff and are newer offerings from the manufactures..   So the last year and even more this year I have been seeing a growth in the popularity of one piece fly rods and now have anglers who fish with me often storing these rods for the season and travel with just there reels. So what is this all about, I was first introduced this modern one piece  fly rods with tarpon anglers and at the time I though it was a great ideal for fish fighting and durability. But when the new Hardy Pro Axis landed in my skiff I new there was something different from the get go, rigging my anglers line and building out the leader for a day of tarpon fishing, I was able to make a few cast and the conversation running out to the flats turned to how quickly the rod loaded for the more often then not tight shots found on the flats, move forward a year and there is now 1/2 of dozen these rod in my quiver in line weight 7 thru 11. I have a few mixed in the 4 piece. but for me I travel with a flats skiff in tow and find that one piece rods even fit in my Tacoma truck if needed, but as one of my anglers said casting this rod is addictive and for the angler who lives near there fishery they are worth  any storage  challenges you may find.. Hardy- just plan and simple does not build crap,never has, have they had old school look and actions that I did not  appeal to me,,, yes but welcome the mind set of the North-American crew adding tarpon angler Andy Mill into the mix and we see a Hardy product that fits our yankee style with performance and durability. A rod that loads at 30 ft with a longer leader and can be bent over the gunnel while attempting to float a tarpon for a clean release has my attention and now is filling up the rod storage on my skiff. So what is the makes the rod works so well??? First off you cannot have a performance fly rods with out great tapers and they did there home work!!! and as I continue to learn about these rods I learned about investment  Hardy has put into R&D that very few companies can afford to match, now add into the mix of resins and fibers that take strength to another level. I am not going to get into the science behind this, my suggestion if you are into the material lay up of these rods, is to google (hardy sintrex) its pretty cool stuff. In the end you have a very light in the hand strong to the feel of the cast and connection to the fish fly rod, that to me has proven more than it's durability!!!            Capt.Eric Wallace 207-671-4330 www.coastalflyangler.come