SAGE Xi3 9wt "25"

Another 9wt heads north! This time a Sage Xi3 for customer Tony H in Queensland.
As a special little touch, we weaved a '25' under the trim band... The rod was self gifted as a milestone reward.
Enjoy her mate!

                                                         

Southern Cross Challenge distance casting event 9-6-2012

Long before we started HCE, Tony and I embarked on a personal development journey... Although we have both been fly fishing for quite a while and you might say pretty good fly casters in our own right, we wanted to get better.

The reasoning was that we had to be the best casters we could be, we had learn all about casting dynamics and have a total understanding of the various techniques and mechanics as well.

Essentially, we felt that to develop great fly rods meant not just understanding fly rods & components but also being able to cast fly rods properly: To cast them so as to be able to assess them more thoroughly and accurately. To work out how to get peak performance from each blank...

My personal casting journey gravitated towards comp casting in distance events. I was lucky enough to have great sessions with John Waters and some very good CCI's from NSFFC helped me along my journey as well.

With improved technique came a greater understanding of how rods could be developed to compliment the technique: To extract every available ounce of power & energy from the rod and achieve maximum performance.

From there, Tony and I developed our "Comp Spec" rods. These rods are used for the 5wt, 7wt and 9wt distance events. Each caster has only 3 minutes to blast as many casts down a casting range with only the best cast counting.

The Comp Spec rods are compliant with the rules of the competition and boundaries of blank construction. We chose the CTS Affinity X blanks as our high performance platform. As it turns out, a very good choice. Our 5wt has been described by John Waters as "an international event winning rod".

To give you an idea of just powerful these 5wt Comp Spec rods that we build are, John has blasted a cast of just over 135' with one!

Today I cast with many other casters in my second year of competition and only my third actual event (I missed a couple last year due to other commitments).

Conditions were anything but favorable. Heavy, cold, still air and constant drizzle making for a very wet event.

I cast our 5wt 9' Comp Spec (SA MED line) 105' 1" to come in 3rd behind John Waters and Matthew Howell (CCI MCI)

In the 7wt event, I cast our 10' 7wt Comp Spec (SA MED line) 106' 9" - many casters commented very positively on this rod. I came in second place behind Matthew.

The surprise result for me was in the 9wt event. We have a 10' 9wt Comp Spec that was unavailable today so I chose to cast our 9' SWoFF Spec: Our saltwater build. Whilst we have many 9wt lines, the only line I could get for today (I'd totally forgot about the line until the last moment!) was an old beat up test line we use for hard surface test casting. I still came in third with a distance of 108' 2" behind John Kruska and Matthew. I was very pleased with that! John incidently was a worthy winner, blasting a huge cast to win the 9wt event.

So overall, a pleasing day of PB's. Thanks to all the competitors for making it a great day regardless of the horrible weather that reflected the ordinary distances achieved. There was a definite wall in those heavy air conditions! 


And thanks CTS, for making great blanks that make so-so casterbators like me look good!

T.J.

HCE NOW THE AUSTRALIAN AUTHORISED DEALER FOR SNAKE BRAND GUIDES!

We have just confirmed today with Mike McCoy that the team at HCE is now an official Authorised Dealer for Snake Brand Guides and Components!

With Mike back at the helm, we are confident that both supply and service of this great product will be better than ever. We are looking forward to growing our relationship with him so that we can supply to local rod crafters in a timely fashion and at prices that make buying local worthwhile.
Naturally, this also means that we can now offer Snake Brand guides as yet another high quality alternative for our custom rod builds!

It is very early days yet, but we should have good stock in the very near future of both Original and Universal snake guides and other components.

Check out their product range here & stay tuned for more information!

Lukes new Custom SWoFF Spec CTS Affinity X 9wt

At HCE, we have our various 'Specs'.
Essentially, these are what we feel are optimum builds for certain forms of fly fishing.
We've tried and tested each Spec until we were satisfied our customers would love them too!

The great part about being custom fly rod builders is our flexibility.

Luke from Queensland loved the idea of the SWoFF Spec - he asked if we could change the cobalt blue blank for a matt black one and if we could alter the trim bands on the bindings so that they better matched his new, blue reel...

   

Naturally, we said yes! And here is his new CTS Affinity X in his own customised SWoFF Spec. This rod is a powerful 9wt with a fast action, extra fast taper - perfect for blasting out fast casts and plenty of backbone for stopping big fast fish!




A quote from Luke... "the 9WT SW Spec I ordered from the guys at HCE arrived recently and can I say the finish of the rod is brilliant. 
I kept my rod as a pretty standard SW Spec with a couple of changes to make it 'mine' and so far have found the CTS blank to be awesome. 
I have been putting some time into getting the feel of the rod (she's fast!) and I can't wait to get up to Airlie Beach and give it a work out!! 

Again thanks to the guys from HCE for great product and if I can get it past the minister for finance and war I will be giving you a call!"