So I did the next best thing and started organizing my fly fishing gear.  I came across one of my favorite new pieces I added (err, one of my MBA classmates who works at Umpqua gave it to me) this year, the UPG Daytripper fly box.  What is UPG?  Umpqua Professional Guide.  No worries, I had to look it up too.

UPG Daytripper - Dry Flies and Emergers

For a few years I had struggled when backpacking or hiking when fly fishing was not going to be the main reason (yes, occasionally I enjoy the outdoors without fishing or hunting) with how to compress my flies.  As a general rule I carry four fly boxes (two with dry fly/emerger, one nymph, and one streamer) with maybe an extra box in the back of the vest; obviously this is too much to put into a daypack.  The Daytripper solved the problem for me.

What I like about it.It is small, about the size of my nymph box, at 4″ wide by 6″ high by 1.5″ deep.  The box can fit a ton of flies, giving you the variety without carrying a plethera of boxes.  Sure I have more flies in my normal setup but, generally, the water I am headed to hiking requires smaller flies and a lot of the fish are less picky and I can make due with a reduced selection.  Unlike most of my open plastic boxes I get to seperate tiny nymphs from drys, without the hooks getting all tangled.  Additionally I can fit a few small to moderate sized streamers and hoopers in without crushing them.

UPG Daytripper - Nymphs

The box used thick plastic to give it solid construction.  While I am not recommending testing by driving a Silverado over it the Daytripper is strong enough for me to throw into a pack and never worry about it, even when dropping to the pack onto a pile of rocks.  Similarly strong, the foam grips flies enough stay in place after throwing the box in a bag and hiking for a couple of hours.  I really like that I am not worried about breaking the box and pulling midge hooks out of my long underwear.

The Daytripper box has somthing called Zerust Corrosion Protection.  I have no idea what exactly that is or how it differs from other materials, though I have never used a foam box before.  All I know is that I have put wet flies away in it and have not seen any rusted hooks.  Of course I live in Colorado and could probably dunk the box open in the river and have all the flies dry within an hour.

What I don’t likeThe box has two magnetic “compartments”.  I end up dropping flies there to dry but it is not really neccessary.  Perhaps the magnetic compartments are for the size 30 flies that I do not carry.The box is heavy.  I am not saying it weights as much as all my other boxes combined, but it is heavy.  As I am not a huge user of the magnetic backing I would imagine removing it would be a decent reduction in weight.  While the box has some mass it is not enough to be an issue in my pack; perhaps after living with a spouse who works at Backpacker Magazine I just have weight on the brain for all gear.

I really like the Daytripper Box and, as the snow is falling deep enough to end most of my backpack fly fishing for the year, I got to smile happily at it one last time in 2011.

Before I forget there is one other benefit of the Daytripper: you get a UPG sticker inside the box – perfect to slap on your car and confuse all of the non fly-fishers.  Oh, you do fly fish and haven’t heard of UPG?  Well, at least now your are less confused and know to check out these boxes next time you are in the market.

After quickly eliminating the need for additional rods and reels I focused on the soft goods, such as waders, vests, and shirts.  The overall market for fly fishing is approximately $850,000,000 to $900,000,000, depending on who you are using for sources.  Looking at soft goods you have $90,000,000 ($35 mm in appearal and $55 mm in waders), and with approximately 22% of fly fishers being women, giving a served available market of $19,800,000.  As consumers, more than 27% of fly anglers make over $100,000 per year and 62% make at least $50,000 per year. Not bad.

Using an online survey I began to gather input on how women felt about the current state of female specific fly fishing equipment.  After sending out the survey to various womens fly fishing clubs, Facebook and LinkedIn groups, and anyone else I could get interested, I found some very possitive trends in the 213 responses (162 identified as women, a summary of results will be a later post).  Largely disappointed with the current options available to them, women are extremely eager to have better fitting equipment, particularly waders; even better they are willing to spend an ample amount of money to purchase new gear.

With the positive responses I contacted fifteen of the women who completed the survey to ask more detailed questions; at this point things began to go downhill.  The women reaffirmed the major points from the online survey about lack of options, sizing, and a willingness to pay, however when asked deeper questions regarding sizing some very important facts came out.  Mens waders are designed such that the waders can fit a range of foot sizes and overall heights.  Nine of the fifteen women drastically dislike this method and want the waders to fit specifically to their body (foot size, height, width) whereas the others consider the existing system acceptable.  Given that the majority of waders are sold to men, and the mens industry does not find it cost effective to build waders with such a large selection of sizing, it is extremely unlikely to find a profitable way to manufacture and distribute a large range female specific waders sizes.

Additionally I contacted five fly shops; the shops feel that only 10-15% of their customers are women.  More importantly the shops sell 5-8 sets of womens specific waders a year and none of them felt the need to add another product line.  Without the support of the independent fly shops, who sell well over 50% of fly fishing goods, the success of a new company would be extremely unlikely.

A company focused exclusively on womens soft goods for fly fishing will not be playing in a great market.  It will be hard to meet desires of customers and even more difficult to get a significant sales channel.  Given the product requirements from customer, if you are a women looking for a bettering fitting set of waders, you will likely need to order a custom set from Simms or TheWaderStore.com over finding the perfect size in an existing product.

There were a few nuggets that came out of the phone interviews that hopefully the existing set of manufacturers can address.  First, over half of the women asked stated that the existing strap system on waders and pocket locations on vest/shirts are extremely uncomfortable on breasts.  The industry could likely borrow some ideas from backpacking women’s specific packs to make straps more comfortable around the female bust.  Second, as fly shops carry an extremely limited selection of female soft goods, a number of women expressed a desire for a Zappos-like shopping site with a large selection of womens fly fishing products.  While I do not know the turnover rates for online fly shops, which may be a concern for inventory carrying costs, this certainly could be a good option for the industry to form an online joint venture to sell their womens products.  Creating a website sales portal and then dropshipping from the various manufacturers should be a relatively simple task.

Finally, in analyzing the data I find some interesting facts.  For example, looking at the average price of a mid-level female specific vest the group came back with $78.19 and a huge standard deviation of 50.36 (you can see some selected results in the red font with the questions below).  When segmenting for women who fish 25 or more days the average price is $80.65 with a 21.29 standard deviation.  Women who fish a lot had higher prices and tighter ranges than those who fished less (and likely were new to the sport); as a whole women are extremely willing to spend money on equipment that fits their needs.

Selected Data from Customer Survey

Female Fly Fisher Respondents by Age Groups

Female Fly Fisher Household Incomes

Female Fly Fisher Current Equipment Class

Female Fly Fisher Next Purchase Equipment Class

Survey Questions

1. How old are you?
2. What is your gender?
3. What is your annual household income?
4. How many people live in your household?  (Yes count spouses, kids, parents, siblings, and perminant guest on the couch.  No, the dog does not count)
5. How did you start fly fishing?
6. How many days per year do you fly fish?
7. What is your email address? Required for entry to win the two dozen flies
8. What is your favorite brand of fly fishing apparel?  (Apparel being items such as waders, boots, shirts, vests, and so on)
9. What fly fishing specific apparel do you own?
10. What do you think about the current offerings of female specific fly fishing gear and apparel?
11. What is important to you when purchasing your fly fishing apparel?  For example: fit, cost, color, pockets, warmth, ect.
12. Is there anything about your current fly fishing apparel that you would specifically like improved?
13. How would you describe the class of your current fly fishing apparel?
14. When you buy new fly fishing apparel, at what level will it be?
15. What do you think would be a reasonable price point for a mid level female specific vest? ($78.19, s.d. 50.36)
16. What do you think would be a reasonable price point for a high end female specific vest? ($133.89, s.d. 73.39)
17. What do you think would be a reasonable price point for a mid level female specific pair of waders? ($157.67, s.d. 61.64)
18. What do you think would be a reasonable price point for a high end female pair of waders? ($284.94, s.d. 145.36)
19. What do you think would be a reasonable price point for a mid level female specific long sleeve shirt? ($45.90, s.d. 15.00)
20. What do you think would be a reasonable price point for a high end female specific long sleeve shirt? ($71.43, s.d. 23.03)
21. What is your foot size?
22. In inches, what is your leg length?
23. In inches, what is your waist size?
24. In inches, what is your chest diameter?
25. How tall are you?
26. Can I contact you for a phone interview regarding womens fly fishing apparel?  If yes (and our thanks), we will email you later to schedule a call.
27. Last questions! Is there anything you think we are completely missing about womens fly fishing?

Curious about the results?  I can dig out specifics (like how much women who fish 15+ days per year with incomes of $75,000 or higher are willing to pay for a female specific set of high end waders).

The temperatures were in the fifties with some gusting winds when we stepped into the creek.  My initial setup was a San Juan worm with a bead head pheasant tail under a, having come down in altitude from Colorado, partially deflated strike indicator.  I started fishing by the inlet of a small spring; as I was tying on my fourth different nymph my father had just landed his third trout of the afternoon.

Twenty minutes later, while looking in my fly box I heard him call for help landing a big rainbow.  About two months ago I caught a 23” rainbow in Boulder Creek, what I consider a small stream.  My father, fishing in a stream less than half the width of Boulder Creek, was tangled up with a beautiful 19” rainbow.  I quickly netted the trout and looked at the fly in its mouth, a pink squirrel.  Thinking I would soon catch up I tied one on my line.  Sadly that was not the case as I continued to be skunked.  Making matters worse, the 3wt Powell I was using decided to break.  After a trip back to the truck to set up a 5-wt I went back down to the stream and continued to watch my father land fish after fish.  He offered to switch rods; I hate it when my father does that because every time I continue my bad luck while he lands more fish on my setup.  That day did not change my dislike for changing rods; I still could not get a bite.  That said, casting my father’s fancy new Sage Z-Axis 4-wt with a Click Series reel was phenomenal and I cannot wait to borrow it again for fishing dry flies.

When my father walked up to remind me we had to leave, he found untangling a massive knot.  My fly fishing ego reverted to that of years ago, deflated as the strike indicator I had been using.  There will always be next time.

Tenkara Iwana

I took an 11′  Tenkara Iwana rod to the local trout infested irrigation ditch.  With all the rain the water was a brilliant chocolate color and I spent more of my time playing with the rod than seriously trying to catch fish.

So what is the Tenkara?

According to Tenkara USA it “is the traditional Japanese method of fly-fishing, which uses only a rod, line and fly”.  Think of it as similar to the homemade rod from your youth, the long stick with some line tied at the end.  Of course that would be rude to the actual Tenkara rod as it behaves very much like a fly rod (abet one made of carbon fiber), not a random tree branch.

Why might Tenkara be appealing?

If you are a minimalist (such as a backpacker) you really cannot get a lighter, more compact, fly setup to take with you. The entire rod packs down into a tube barely wider than the handle and can be easily slipped in with your other gear.  As the line ties directly onto the tip of the rod, you will not need the extra weight of a reel.

How it performed?

I am undecided; casting was more difficult than I had expected.  The line, braided monofilament, was exceedingly light.  Given that fly rods (Tenkara included) rely on the weight of the line to load and cast, this made casting troublesome.  It was not impossible, but very frustrating to get the speed just right.  The motion was very slow, stopping at 12 o’clock, but required a relatively hard finish (rod tip almost touching the water) to get the line to layout properly.  Increasing the length of the tippet  to 14-16 inches made it a bit better, but still not consistent.  I did, unsurprisingly, have more success casting when using a weighted (or even just wet) nymph.  However the #22 Adams I started with was an adventure and it did not get much better when I increased size to #16 PMD.  Just remember that it will take some time to get the technique right.

After you figure out how to cast, you better hope you do not need to put the fly out more than 20 feet.  Why 20 feet?  Since there is no reel that is just about the max length you can get.  The rod will work for small streams and pocket water so if you expect only to encounter this you are set.  If you have any expectation of need for longer casting, you will be disappointed.

Will I use it again?

I am not going out of my way to recommend this rod to friends but I will lend it out if I hear someone going somewhere it could be useful.  Personally I will use it again, taking it on light hikes in the mountains as a lightweight rod in my daypack when I am not expecting to run into a stream.  Perhaps sometime I will be able to catch a fish with it.  That said, if I have any expectation of fishing I will probably throw the March Brown Baden-Powell Special Edition in my pack.

Winter Nymphing on Boulder Creek

Falling in Love with the Williams Fork River

Cold Weather Williams Fork River Rainbow Release

Little Winter Rainbows on the South Boulder Creek

My Father’s Epic Day on the Blue River

Backpacker.com 9-wt Testing in Boulder

Rock Mountain National Park with The Colorado Daily

The Colorado Daily’s Jenn Fields with a RMNP Greenback Cutthroat

Roaring Fork River Brown Trout

My Father Enjoying the Fishing and Scenery on the Frying Pan River

Brown Trout from the Frying Pan River

My Father Sampling the Rainbow Trout at the Q Creek Ranch in Wyoming

Q Creek Ranch Brown Trout