Product Review:

Sea Level Fly Fishing's Bluewater Extreme Fly Rods

Sea Level Fly Fishing's Bluewater Extreme fly rods are a good fit for Beyond The Breakwater fly-fishing. Here's our review...

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Introduction

Basic Specs

A Closer Look

Performance Notes

Other Notes & Conclusions

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The Extreme 14wt was overkill
for this 450 Bank football Yellowfin
(Click for larger image)

Short fly rods tend to demand more from your casting technique than long fly rods. Like the other short rods we tested, throwing a full fly line on an Extreme is possible, but it requires you to pay attention to your casting technique. These rods seem to respond best when you let the upper third of the rod do most of the casting work for you, but that can be easy to forget when you're in the midst of a hot bite.

A large part of making a good forward cast is making a good backcast. Since most BTB fishing is done with fast-sinking fly lines, it’s important to remember that picking line up off the water with a short rod is more difficult than when you use a long rod. If you can make a good roll cast pickup, you'll avoid a lot of frustration.

As you might expect, the Extremes are great fish-fighting tools. While we didn’t get a chance to pit them against any truly huge fish, the 15 -25lb yellowfin tuna we did find were fully capable of putting a serious bend in even the 14wt.

We’re happy to report that both rods performed as expected. These rods had plenty of reserve lifting power even when heavily loaded, and they handled 12, 16 and 20lb class tippets with aplomb. Their short lengths made handling fish at boat-side easier.

As expected, the extra weight of the Extremes was not really noticeable in practice. Overall, it seemed like a fair tradeoff for the extra durability of the heavier blank and reinforced ferrules.

The foregrips on the Extreme rods worked well for us. My rod lifting hand fell naturally onto the foregrip in most situations while fighting fish, and I don't recall ever trying to grip the rod in the small gap between the grip and the foregrip. However, as they say: “Your mileage may vary”. People with shorter or longer arms may not feel the same about the positioning of the foregrip.