Croton River Report and Swift Rod Review

I met up with Tom from the Anglers Den on Monday after a doctors appointment at West Point. It was nice to be in my old stomping grounds and with nice weather to boot for the first time this year. Hendricksons have been coming off there at about 1:30 but unfortunately I didn't make it to the river until 3:00. There were still some bugs coming off and Tom had raised a few right before I got there but the main part of the hatch was over and the dry bite shut down.
After a lost car key mishap in the parking lot we hit the river for about a half hour before Tom had to head off. Luckily right before Tom left I hooked a fish and was able to use him as a camera man. I was putting a Swift Epic 764 that I just finished through the works and I have to say that this rod was awesome. There is no way I am selling this now so I am going to have to build another.
Nice Brown to break in the new Swift rod

Hero Shot 
I was incredibly pleased with the action on the Swift. The rod is very crisp for a glass rod but it maintains the nice soft feel of traditional glass. It has plenty of backbone to make casts but handles a line very well in the mend and translates all the feel down to the handle. This is a stellar dry fly rod, the presentation you get is amazing. This thing lays down a dry with unbelievable delicacy. I cannot recommend this tool enough, it may not have enough backbone for streamers but it does what its meant to do very very well.

"Swift Epic 764-3 Natural" in action 

After I landed that fish and Tom took off I headed down to the bathtub to finish out the night and hope for a spinner fall, that never happened but I did get into some great action on rainbows as would be expected in that spot and. I got enough action to satisfy me so I moved down river to fish some less productive water that I just loved to fish back in the day. Realizing the river changed drastically I headed back out and ran into Frank.

Nice rainbow from the bathtub
Another nice E.Branch fish
Look at the colors on this little guy
I decided to put the rod up and film Frank for a little while hoping to catch some footage of the giant rainbows we spotted from the bridge mixed in with the suckers. He never did manage to hook those fish but he came tight twice on nice fish and landed both of them. All in all it was a great day and if it is any indicator of what the season will be like it is going to be awesome. Right now there are plenty of holdovers in the river and the hatch is in full swing. Give Tom a call at the Anglers Den for an up to the day report.


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