Well I got the Yomogi out this weekend for a cast in the garden.
I spooled up the Kineya with an old Rio Selective Trout WF4, and it fit, but with no backing - which is ok, as it's for small stream tiny fish. I've never seen a river trout even take any backing.
Eventually a half length Yano sild DT4F will go on here and this will do till then.
Weightwise, the 3 piece, 7'3" 4wt Yomogi weighs a flat 3oz. The Kineya loaded with the WF4F weighed 4.9 oz and it matched the Yomogi absolutely perfectly, balancing neatly on my index finger an inch or so down from the top of the grip. I was actually a bit surprised at the weight of the Yomogi, with the cap and ring and minimal wraps, I thought it would be a half an ounce lighter than it is for such a short rod, not that that miniscule weight is ever going to tax me!
Doing the wiggle test, the rod felt like it flexed down to the first joint from the butt. Tomo describes this as a slightly less parabolic faster version that say his full parabolic 7' #3, and I've seen pictures of him casting and it's flexing like about eight inches away from his hand on the butt!.
Out on the garden it actually felt less parabolic that the wiggle test, but it felt very nice. It didn't feel mushy, soft, slow at all but quite crisp and responsive. I have trees and bushes in my 60' garden and so had to thread the casts through the openings but I felt I could control the loops quite easily, shooting under the branches and gaps between the branches and the shrubs on the other side. There was even a moderate cross wind and that presented no problems at all.
I look forward to when we're out of lockdown and I can go down to my local river, use it in anger and feel what it's like with a leader/fly and a fish on the end.
Here are some closeup shots of the rod and reel together, showing Sandy's building skills! I tried to capture the amazing figuring, swirls, shimmers on the amboyna, but pictures can never do it justice.
The rod sock is made by Tomo from kimono material and the cap/ring and tube are made by the same maker as the reel, Masatoshi (
Mass) Okui of Kineya.
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