HCE announced as the official Australian Agent for CTS Fly Rod Blanks.

HCE announced as the official Australian Agent for CTS Fly Rod Blanks.

HCE has been in a close working relationship with the great people at CTS in New Zealand (An innovative & quality focused fly rod blank manufacturer) for some time.

Over the last few years, we have gotten to know their range of fly blanks quite well, testing and developing builds, using some as the base platform for some of our SPEC builds.

We also began to work with CTS to produce our own proprietary blank designs like the Native Spec and the soon to be launched Hyper Spec.

We have even worked with individual clients to develop special, one off blanks.

 When we started HCE, part of our mission was to build on the best blanks available in the market. Without a doubt, CTS are up there – their dedication to quality and ongoing development is admirable and would be the envy of many.

Many fly fishers have cast our CTS builds and many now own them.

Our friends out there who know us personally also know we are independent, that we are not swayed by media hype and we prefer our products to speak for themselves.

We test the product and we say what we think of it. CTS fly blanks have managed to win a special place in our business. They are a proven product.

As the official Australian Agent for CTS Fly Rod Blanks, we look forward to be able to grow the awareness of a fly fishing focused, worthy and quality driven organisation like CTS.

We can supply CTS blanks in a myriad of colors, weights, lengths, pieces, actions and tapers: whatever your fly fishing situation, we can custom cater to you. Even one off blanks!

Tony & I will be handling all enquiries from local fly rod crafters for the CTS Fly Rod Blanks range.

Native Spec 10wt 8' Blooded!

Nick Kneipp recently blooded the custom 8' 10wt Native Spec we designed and built for him.

CTS in New Zealand made the blank for us to our specifications, we rolled it here in Melbourne and then sent it up to NSW where Nick showed it to some cod!

To quote Nick...

"Blooded the new HCE Native Spec 8ft'er, matched to a 10 wt Outbound Short floater and a 

8/0 Bendy Roller Popper. Had my chance with another two fish, but that's fishing. The rods is 

a thing of beauty and definately has some muscle, perfect for chasing the mighty Murray Cod."

Well done Nick!

Check out Nicks sensational exploits on his blog here...

Fly rod action & taper as explained by our fly blank partner in New Zealand, CTS

Sage 7wt One - A new build begins...

Tuned the 7wt One today.

We stay impartial when we tune our rods. We don't compare the rod in hand to anything else, our focus remains solely on the rod's performance, dynamics and form. 
We consider a set of serious criteria we've developed: a formula if you wish to call it something. It took us a while to develop this formula and so far, it's worked pretty well. 

Perhaps, after the rod is finally set in the lathe, we might start to chat about how it compares to this or that. From those type of discussions, builds are dreamed up and we start to squiggle on paper: this action, that taper...

And we will talk about the rod we just cast. What we thought, what lines it liked, that sort of thing.

Today was no different. 

This is a nice rod. It casts well. It picked up 60' of line and one back cast saw the whole Rio Gold line through the tip. SA Striper goes well too.
It is very accurate: pinging the targets 20/30/40/50' unerringly. The recovery is great.
It has a good natured feel to it and is lively in hand. It is, a fine fishing rod with a lovely bend - a moderate/fast action with a nice quickish taper. 
We got a very good impression on how it would be able to put typical 7wt backbone against a fleeing fish. 
'Bones' we thought.


Tony said Geoff should be pleased. I agree.

Tonight we set up, prep guides & design the weave. Tomorrow we bind. 

April 17th, he casts.

And the finished rod...

                                                                               

Custom Length Native Spec

Nick Kneipp should be no stranger to local cod fly fishers. His great blog, Cods Country features great footage of close quarters cod fishing on fly.

Nick went for the all
water REC seat. This
would make a great
Barra rod!

We are honored to have been asked by Nick to develop an 8 foot version of our 10wt Native Spec. It took a bit of re engineering to the blank design but our blank maker partner, CTS in New Zealand, have done an amazing job.

It is a little less tippy than the original 8'6" stock version we developed earlier but still possesses all those great attributes... Lightness in hand for all day casts, pin point accuracy and load of power to spare!

We hope you like it Nick!

Perfect for float tubing or fishing from a kayak.

21 April 2012

We sent Nick an email to check if the new rod had arrived safely to its new owner.

This was his reply "The rod has turned up on Thursday evening. I got it out and grass cast it using the Outbound 10wt 426gr short line, it handles it with ease.  The wife and I are impressed with the build quality and colour scheme, she actually managed some tight loops as well.  My 11 year old daughter had a cast as well, so it has attracted attention at my camp.  

I had a talk ... about a short 8ft dedicated Bass rod and a 7wt rod would be the ideal weight, since most flylines are available in tropical rated.

  

I hope to fish it soon and gather some footage and photos....

Thanking you for vision of building quality rods.  You will hear from me soon.

Regards Nick"      


Can't wait until he gets to blood it !   

10' HCE Spec CTS Affinity X lake rod

Last week end I was out at Millbrook Lakes (Where Tony & I have done a few photo shoots) for a week end away with some of the guys.
Apart it being a terrific social weekend, it was also a great opportunity to really put our special lake rod, the HCE Spec Affinity X 10 foot 6wt through it's paces.
I used the rod exclusively for three days, hooking into about 40 fish, landing 27 - a good chance to get to know this rod very, very well.
It was used to slowly strip nymphs from a boat.
Polaroiding from high banks then dropping flies down from there with really good accuracy. Punching into head winds to target Gambusia feeders.
Indicator fishing deep dam wall sections and
throwing dry/nymph/emerger combos at actively feeding fish on the move...
It is perfect for deep wading, longer casts and is great at dampening the sudden lunges of big fish with the forgiving tip action.
There is plenty of reserve down low to really put some muscle on stubborn fish.

A great fly rod for lake fishing that we are proud to be able to offer.

Here is a series of shots from Chris Beech of Flymax fame of yours truly getting into a polaroided shark at Middle Forbes... Thanks Chris!

After spotting the cruiser, stalking into position

The cast is made, about 20' up off the water - the 10' HCE Spec dropped the fly in the perfect spot... the fish sees it... and then...

...takes it! I saw the fish turn, slink up to the fly, decide it was food and got the eat!
Look at that rod action... perfect bend!

How cool is this! Note the high vantage point the cast was made from, and all the dead wood in the water the fish had to be steered away from

My nice bow, handled for me by Phillip Weigal
Awesome stuff made easy with an awesome rod!

Plan B - West coast exploration

We'd planned to fish our way up from our home base in Melbourne, hitting the north east of the state and then catching up with a crew from the FlyLife forum in Tumut. A good, 8 day trip - casting our range of rods, talking shop with the guys, and plenty of fishing, fishing, fishing.
But record breaking floods in that region meant roads had been cut and streams in full, raging flood. The caravan park where we were to stay had been evacuated and emergency services advised against travel in those areas. Great disappointment...


Time for plan B.


We decided to head west and explore areas that we'd heard and read about as well as drop into some known spots.
Day one saw us pull out of Melbourne's city limits and with the Woo-Hoo Mobile pointed west, our journey began.
In a matter of hours, we started fishing our first stream. A known stream, running pristine & clear - but low. Too low. The fish proved spooky and although we managed to get some looking and slashing at the dries, no good fish came to hand.


Great way to spend the day!


Day Two was full of surprises. We strung up our 6wts, the orginal two rods that we made as prototypes a few years ago before we launched HCE. Man, have they done some serious work and wow, they are still going strong - the cork looks tired but water, sun, salt and a million casts will eventually take its toll.


We found an interesting meadow stream, flowing well but tannin dark and brackish. Dark woolly buggers tied, we started to explore that deep dark stream.
Tony was first to get a fish on the board with a nice, gloriously marked brown.

Then we started to hook bream and even some small Australian Salmon!
This turning out to be a great day! We walked and cast, get smashed a few times ans just marveling at how we were getting browns and bream from the same water!


Some light rain showers fell, the sun came out to dry us off and we felt good that decided to do this exploration. Bloody cool fishing! A nice meal in the local at the end of the day, washed down with a couple of good beers. And yes, we still love those original old HCE Spec 6wts!

Solid blue-nose!

Day three saw us up early-ish, a light hearty breakfast and then we set off to explore a new stream. It pretty hardcore going, steep terrain, bashing through thick undergrowth and navigating with the handheld GPX. We were searching for access to a stream that we knew would hardly get any one on it and we soon realised why... some serious work to just get in...                                                                                                                                   


                                                                 


But when we finally won our passage, 
that first glimpse of water was both very pleasing and gratifying. 
Perfect, pristine twig water... 

Choosing the next dry...

As perfect as it was, as beautiful a stream as we've ever been to anywhere, as an amazing setting that you could possibly imagine, for some unknown reason it proved to be devoid of fish. The river bed was alive with nymphs, stone fly nymphs, caddis casings... the water cool and clear... But alas, we have concluded the trout had been abducted by aliens.

Really?

After our trek out of the barron waters, we headed to some headwaters. In keeping with todays he man theme and hit snake gully...


Great looking stream, a few fish about too. Low water again meant spooky fish but the scenery again made everything worthwhile.


Tony was driving the Retro Spec 3wt & was roll casting 30' with unerring accuracy and again it's delicate casting and gentle, refined action made it a joy to use. This is, simply, and I know I've said this before, the best light stream rod ever. Full stop. Regardless, I was loving the Evo Spec 3wt - a great point & shoot twig that excels when conditions get too tough.

Twiggy pocket water

Snake? Nope, eel!

Day Four we hit the Aire below the highway bridge and got into a few nice bream before we moved off to catch up with good friend and customer, JJ.

We hiked into a secret, ultra twiggy spot that was populated with very wary, small mountain browns - they wore dainty spots that could have been air brushed on with a template.


No room to cast, bow and arrow with the occasional roll cast was the order of the afternoon. 

Tight country: bow and arrow casts only!

It was very hard going and we really worked ourselves over getting and out... but the breathtaking scenery & lil tout made for a very enjoyable experience none of of us will forget in a hurry!

teasing the trout

Day Five we were up early... and checked out a river, the Aire, which has just dropped due to the mouth being artificially opened. We should get some great Bream fishing tomorrow and the day after once it gets a few salty flushes with the tides.
We looked at another little meadow stream which had a few trout which interested us but another called...        
                                                                    

So we headed back to camp, cooked up a nice mid arvo lunch and headed off.. It was another day of firsts for TJ, getting his first Grayling on fly as well a mullet!




















Day Six. Sleep in to rest our wearied bodies. We'd done some hard yards over the last 5 days. Today we planned to fish the mouth of the Aire, and that we did. Mullet, a lone salmon and quite a few bream were caught on our flies... Flies included Gotchas and fuzzled numbers and a few other bait fish & shrimp patterns.


As the tide turned to flow out in the late afternoon, the tannin stained river water slid out the mouth. We fished over the weed beds near a drop off and had a great afternoon session off the sand.


Some shots from today...