I recently got my hands on the Douglas Sky 9ft 6wt. It felt like Christmas came early as I unboxed this rod at my doorstep because I couldn’t wait to even step through my front door before opening it. I had heard a lot about this rod and had read even more. After it had topped the charts of the Yellowstone Angler’s 6wt shootout and beat out rods like the G Loomis Asquith, and the Scott Radian, I knew I had to try it. My wife and I planned a trip to some water that had serious potential for throwing dry flies at big brown trout. Since it was a decent drive we decided to get all packed up for camping the night after we fished. As always, we had butterflies while thinking about what might take place the following day on the river. Before we hit the road the next morning we had to make a quick pit stop at Montana Troutfitters to grab a handful of flies. I knew that the PMD’s would be hatching while we were out there and I did not want to take the chance of running out.
When we made it to the river and hopped out of the 4runner, the first thing we saw was sparrows dive bombing the surface of the river. A great sign for any angler, as that means there were plenty of bugs hatching. After rigging up and walking down to the bank of the river I saw PMD’s flying everywhere. We stood on the bank for a while, scanning the river in hopes of seeing trout break the surface of the water as they fed. To both of our surprise, we did not see what we were hoping for. My wife, Crosby, decided to start nymphing while I stayed committed to the dry fly in hopes of coaxing a trout to rise. After about 20 minutes Crosby spotted a large fish sip right off the opposite bank across from where we were fishing. She graciously offered to let me take the first shot at the fish and I happily took her up on it. While I loosely gripped my new Douglas rod I stayed focused on placing my fly right in the lane that this fish had fed. To my amazement, because I am no Bud Lilly, my fly landed exactly where I wanted it to. Maybe it was luck, or maybe it was this new rod living up to its hype. Either way, things went into slow motion as I waited for my fly to drift over this fish. What felt like years, but was more like a second after my fly hit the water, a fish erupted on my dry fly. This was no gentle eat. It was violent, and I about buckled at the knees after seeing the size of the head that came up to engulf the fly. My rod instantly bent in half as watched a brown trout To say that I am happy with this fly rod would be an understatement. It has exceeded all expectations that I had before using it. I’ve since landed many more fish with it and it has handled each one of them with ease. More importantly, its accuracy is something I haven’t experienced in a rod before. I have since recommended this rod to anyone I am on the water with. Don’t sleep, the Douglas Sky should be the next rod in your quiver!
Cody Ling is a die-hard angler who is passionate about all things fly fishing. Cody lives in Bozeman, MT where he is a full time elementary teacher. He spends every free minute he has tossing flies and enjoys nothing more then spending time with his beautiful wife and best buds on the water.
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launch three feet in the air. This was my first look at the full size of the fish and things got serious. The fight lasted about 2 minutes and one of my good buddies took no chances as he scooped this behemoth into the net. I fell over, able to finally breathe in relief as I knew I was going to get the chance to shake hands with this beautiful fish. After a few quick photos and taping it at 23” we let her go to see another day.
