REYR company image. REYR [rair] (noun): Icelandic for reed or pole. We take homage to this word as the reed is a common sight whether at a local pond or high mountain stream it is a signal to us that we are near the water we love.
By Skip Clement
[dropcap]I[/dropcap] was making a pass-through the fly shop in Cabela’s in Acworth, Georgia, right on I-75, and I overheard a guy making small talk with a senior citizen staffing the fly shop. He said he owned a Tenkara fly rod with a reel – then he said the name of the maker which sounded like REYR.
I didn’t join in because I thought I’d heard wrong. I moved onto the gun shop, the reason I was there, but about a half hour later, as serendipity sometimes happens, the guy with the Tenkara fly rod with a reel was parked next to me in a parking lot the size of three football fields.
His name was Dave Perkins from Pensacola, Florida and on his way to spend a week with his brother fishing the mountain streams of North Carolina.
Here’s my initial thought on the REYR rod
- It retracts and expands to length exactly like a Tenkara rod.
- It will not take to nymphing as well as a Tenkara, but it will fly cast, unlike a Tenkara rod.
- You can’t exactly stick it in your pocket, but like a Tenkara – being retractable, it is highly portable to the point you hike into where you want to fish, the rod is not ever in your take-care thoughts.
- You get to where you’re going almost twice as fast as you would carrying a conventional fly rod of any length – even broken down.
- It doesn’t fit in the glove compartment – think under the front seat, but ready to fish as soon as you close the door.
- Does it cast as well as a good glass or graphite rod of conventional construction? No, of course not, but then it’s not the point is it.
- It’s sold as a one size fits all combo at a decent price.
- The people that put it together fly fish.
- If you’ve got some disposable Shekels, like the idea of a portable and you’re content not fishing for steelhead of tarpon with it – you’re good, go for it.
- It’ about $280 at a fly shop.
