Michael Gracie 

A while back someone near and dear picked fun at the fact that I take care of my fly-fishing gear. I described how I wipe down my rods after each outing. They snickered. How I let my reels air dry in the office. They chuckled. That I occasionally clean my lines with a soft, wet sponge. They laughed out loud.

“I don’t ever leave my rigs in the truck over night.”

Cue tumble on the floor, in tears.

You spend a great deal of money on your fly-fishing gear, so I think you should take care of it. Some folks, however, don’t think you actually need to spend that much money on your equipment, nor give it a polish each time it gets within a 100 feet of water. And we are about to find out if they are right.

Introducing the Redington/RIO Summer Vacation Package…

Will it survive? Only a summer will tell.

Mysterious (yet very useful) bundles do at times arrive on my doorstep after I beg like a spoiled child behind closed doors, but this delivery was wholly arranged in advance. It starts with a Redington Torrent 9′ 7-weight, 4-piece, a fine looking stick in shiny, semi-translucent green. Said rod is paired with a Redington Delta 7/8 reel in “smoke” color, and wrapped within is a hefty helping of Rio Grand WF-7-F. Total retail value is just shy of $550. No bad for a setup that could easily be used on salty flats. But it’s going someplace much worse.

We are going to call this a break from tender loving care. A test of value proposition. Or simply the summer of abuse. I’m betting I’ll destroy this equipment in short order; meanwhile the folks at Farbank (Redington & RIO’s parent company) are going all in that the gear will still be pristine operating condition when I return it to them. I won’t purposely try and break anything, but I will let it bake in the truck, won’t clean a thing, may occasionally will often set it on a pile of rocks instead of laying it gently in the grass, and will otherwise fish it as hard as possible. With heavy tippets. For carp. In the urban South Platte drainage and nearby environs.

I’d say odds right now are even, but we all know the target species clearly has the upper hand in this game of precision and skill unadulterated dumb luck – let’s hope this setup is smart, because we know the angler wielding it needs a whole lotta help. Intermittent reports on the rig’s perform and condition will follow, including but not limited to a repetitively photoshopped pic of the carp I catch this season.

MG signing off (to call on the cyprinid wrecking crew)