Winston BIIX Spey

Winston BIIX Spey
This long anticipated rod series is finally available, but in very short supply. 

 I got a chance to put the 14-foot, 8/9-weight through the paces Tuesday during a float on one of our local steelhead rivers.  Here is what happened:  A brand new Galvan Reel was spooled up with a a Rio WindCutter 8/9/10 line.  We started the morning in a classic winter run that required 75' casts with a type-8 sinking tip.  The starting fly was a lightweight bunny 

leech tied #1.5 Alec Jackson hook. The first thing you will notice about the B2X8914 is that it is incredibly lightweight at 7 3/4 ounces.  We weighed this test rod on the postage scales and it does weigh 7 3/4 ounces.  Flexing the rod in our shop my first impression was that it had a fast action.  On the water I quickly learned that that the action is actually fairly traditional.  This rod likes a long casting stroke and has a lot of power when loaded deep into the butt.  Using a Snap-T Cast, I was able to cover the water in a comfortable fashion.  But, when I changed flies things got complicated.  The second fly was tied on a larger size Loop Bottle Tube.  With an overall length of 2 1/2" it could be considered a standard size for the water conditions we normally face most of the winter.  Getting this fly out of the water with this rod became laborious.  After the the fly was place on the proper anchor position and the D-loop was formed, the forward stroke was easy and the fly could be cast the prescribed distance with authority.  After two-hours of focusing my attention on getting the fly set up right, I finally concluded that it was too much work and replaced the fly with a #2 Green Butt Skunk.  Wow, what a difference!  All parts of this run; which needed 90'+ casts, were easily reached.  The rod/line combination worked smooth and easy.  My next move was to replace the 15' tip #2 with a 10' Skagit Cheater and tie on the bottle tube fly again.  It worked.  The shorter head on the fly line did improve casting performance with the bigger fly.  I stuck with this outfit until after lunch and then put it away.  I got out another rod/reel combination which uses the same 8/9/10 WindCutter fly line.  There was a marked improvement in my casting when throwing the large fly and a steelhead was quickly hooked.  However the Brand-X rod weighs 12-ounces instead of 7 3/4 ounces.  Although the two rods are the same length and are rated for the same line they were not designed for the same purpose, nor do they fill the same roles.  Brand-X is very stiff in the butt and has tremendous lifting power.  It is my favorite rod for winter steelhead on the local rivers, but is too much rod for most summer fisheries east of the Cascades.  I think that the Winston B2X8914 may be the perfect Deschutes summer steelhead rod.  My prediction is that it will be a joy with a floating line and it will handle with authority the sunk flies and tips used on the Deschutes.  Last November at the Fly Tackle Show in Denver Sam Druckman (Winston's rod designer) and I talked about the perfect Deschutes steelhead spey rod.  
"Sam, you may already have it.   I would like a more powerful rod for winter."

and efficiently enough sustain themselves in a river and are fast enough to compete in the ocean.   
We fish for steelhead when they are changing from a marine animal to a freshwater animal.  Ocean-fresh steelhead often have a quite different mentality than fish that have been back in freshwater for a month or more.  The longer a steelhead stays in fresh water the more "trouty" its personality becomes.  Every steelhead caught on a fly rod is a trophy.  However steelhead that are fresh from the Ocean are faster and stronger than ones who have been in fresh water for a while.  That is why winter in Oregon is so grand.  There are a lot of very fresh steelhead in our local rivers during winter.  Many of these steelhead are so fresh they think they are still feeding on Ocean food like juvenile squid, shrimp and krill.  These steelhead prefer large flies that move and look like Ocean prey.  As they migrate farther from the salt, they will slowly acquire a taste for aquatic invertebrates and drifting spawn, but only if the currents of the river bring these items very close to their mouths. 
So fly speed can change with where in the watershed you are fishing, but can be loosely defined as: form as slow as dead drift and to as fast as the speed of a shrimp or squid in the Ocean.  At first that seems like a wide variety of speeds.  However, the shrimp and squids I have observed in large aquariums weren't moving very fast.  The kinds of prey that steelhead eat while in the Ocean aren't designed to move fast over long distances?  However, shrimp and squid are capable of propelling themselves.  The row from fish spawning in a river has no propulsion of its own and drifts with the whims of the currents.  So do most aquatic insects.  There are currents in the Ocean.  The Ocean prey of steelhead probably drift with marine currents as they go about their natural life processes.  All the while the steelhead are feeding on these organisms, they are adapting to become more efficient at capturing them.  In effect, the prey is fashioning the predator...which feeds on prey that travels at moderate speed.
Steelhead fly speed could be loosely defined from as immobile as a drifting salmon egg to as fast as the average speed of a squid in the ocean.
This indicates that your fly shouldn't move across the current very fast. Maybe your fly shouldn't act like it is even capable of moving very quickly.  There is probably no other facet of nature that heightens predatory instinct quicker than prey that is vulnerable and easy to catch. And the closer it gets to the predators mouth, the more attractive it gets.  
The Convenience Factor:
If you live in Welches and the closest grocery store is located in Tillamook, a distance of about 200 miles, you probably aren't going shopping more that once a month.  If a similar store becomes available in Portland a distance of 45 miles, the trips to town become a weekly affair.  If the store adjoins your workplace, you might visit multiple times in the same day.  By the time you get home and the food is right in front of your chair, you are going to eat.  At this point eating becomes the most interesting thing in your surrounding environment.  The closer the food gets to your mouth the more you will eat.  Fish probably aren't much different.