I think the rod as it is, should be quite agood nymphing rod for the purposes of the Cape streams, Korrie. Most of our nymphing, as you know, is done at fairly short distances, compared to a lot of the nymphing done in Europe. Ok, apart from Czech nymphing. A 9 foot 6, or even a 10 foot version of the Bario, might be usefull for reach though.
Mike, many dry fly anglers, from our neck of the woods, still rate a 9 footter and unneccesarilly long (poor uninformed souls). Bear in mind that the vast majority of people who fish the Cape Streams, choose to go with the dry only, due to the trout here, being unusually prone to rise to the surface in just about all conditions. Dry fly fishing in the Cape, is generally accepted as the first choice tactic of most of out anglers, and I do understand the advantages of a shorter rod for close in, dry fly work. There is however a small group of "renegades" namely Korrie, and myself (plus a few others) who find great pleasure in the more technical elements on trout nymphing, and tend to look at rods and lines, with slightly more critical eyes than the general "dry fly" public, many on whom, view nymphing as a "dry and dropper" setup, or a "nymph and indicator" setup, which in my opinion, neither technique is able to fully exploit the conditions, although both are technically, a rudimentary nymphing tactic.
If we look at straight line nymphing, where it becomes critical to manage the fly line and leader to makimum effect in order to detect the subtle bites of the trout, and the more subtle takes of the larger fish, who simply open their mouths and use the vacum inside the mouth to "suck" the fly in, line and leader managment becomes more critical in order to detect the slight movement transferred along the line and down to the rod tip. The less line between the rod tip, and the fish, the better to detect the subltle movements. If a rod has an extra foot, or a few more inches, that is less line between rod tipo and fish, and therefore a better chance of bite detection. A soft tip for bite detection, and light tippet protectin, is essential. A Bario rod, with a similar action to the one that Korrie and I have , but with an extra 9 to 14 inches, would be a great specialist rod for nymphing the Cape Streams, and if you ever choose to produce one, please keep one aside, as I will definatly be a customer. In fact, why not produce a prototype, and get Alex to test it in the Cape... better still, why not come out, and test it yourself, with Alex.
