Fun in the sun with the Taniwha TNHX 9’6/ 10’6 2/3wt
Taniwha TNHX 9’6/ 10’6 2/3wt Review
I headed to Spain back in October for a late season, brownie chasing mission, and planned to take some of the Taniwha rod’s away with me to give them a good test with some chunky brown trout the river in Catalonia is known for! This trip had been a long time coming and finally get the chance to meet up with Jordi who I’d been friends with on Instagram for a long time and had spoken about a trip to meet up and fish his local river for many years!
With just a few weeks to go I decided to quickly build up the Taniwha TNHX 9’6-10’6 2/3wt to take with me, it would just about squeeze into my bag and I wouldn’t have to take ‘Sports Equipment’ that would have cost another €50 each way, I was nervous enough about all my kit not arriving as it was so to add another bag into the mix would have been a bit more unnecessary stress, as it was my waders and wading boots went in my hand luggage!
The TNHX 9’6-10’6 2/3wt is a 9’6 3wt with an additional section that takes the rod out to 10’6 and drops the line weight to a 2wt, a multi-purpose rod in one package that would cover dry fly and nymph at 9’6 with a fly line and then a euro style nymphing rod with mono rigs at 10’6. So the build commenced, but firstly, I needed to get the guide spacing dialled in, with the first stripping guide needed to be close to hand to cut down on slack and easy line management but still not as close as an out and out ESN rod it was a bit of trail and error, added to that the taming guide on the extension piece it was an interesting conundrum and I’m very happy with how it turned out and the performance is far better than I thought! The build was going to be ESN biased so an EVA slim Reverse Half Wells (RHW) grip, down-locking ultralight carbon reel seat and a mini EVA fighting butt and then a guide train made up of a 12# stripper, 10# taming guide on the extension piece in to single foot runners with the last three before the tip snakes to help reduce line wrap, black wraps with a metallic yellow gold trim on the ferrules, winding check and inscription containment wraps!
A few days left before my departure to Spain I had one chance to give the rod a quick flick on a local stretch of the River Dove, the brown trout season was over so I set the rod up with a mono rig and two flies that I do well with for grayling, lobbing the flies about to get a feel for the rod and it seemed good so far, a nice soft tip to get the flies out, quick tip recovery and great feel down the blank and into the hand though the EVA grip. It wasn’t long before the first grayling hit the dropper and in she came, before another and another, three fish in ten minutes and that was me done, time to head back to work to get things tied up and an empty desk before Spain!
The travel out to Spain was fairly uneventful just the usual drive to airport parking, get bus transfer to terminal, check in, clear customs, board flight etc so after leaving Staffordshire at 05.30 I arrived at the hotel at 16.30 with the hire car still intact, it had been awhile since I’d driven on the wrong side of the road!
An early start on the Saturday morning and a short 20 minute drive had me sat in a café meeting Jordi and the rest of the guys and planning the days ahead over caffein and croissants, by 8am we were parked up and rigging up, these guys fish hard, no dithering about rigging up, just down to business and getting on the water ASAP.
With the four of us fishing we spread out over various runs, pools and riffles and when you caught up to the angler in front you leapfrogged ahead. I’d set up a pretty standard Spanish nymphing rig with straight mono into 140cm of sighter to a 1.5mm tippet ring and then 6x tippet of about 120cm with a single dropper 50cm above the point fly, exactly the same set up as my quick trial with the outfit on the Dove a few days before. It didn’t take long to get into the rhythm of euro nymphing and within ten minutes we’d all put fish in the net, all good sized hard fighting browns between 10 and 14”, this continued until we broke for lunch and a quick rough tally up had well over 100 fish netted between the four of us. After 5 hours of fishing the Taniwha TNHX at 10’6 I’d certainly given it a good work out and I’m more than happy to sat this is a premium euro/ tightline nymphing rod and was as nice as any of the premium factory rods I’ve tried before, the rod balanced nicely with the Danielsson Dry Fly reel and with the build weighing in at 80gr it was easy to fish for hours on end without fatigue. After a lunch of cheese, cold meats, olives and bread to die for we were back on the river, I was hoping to see a few fish rising so I could take the rod down to 9’6 and put a fly line through it but alas the fish had better ideas and they were looking down all day!
Sunday was a repeat of Saturday although the guys had to head off at lunchtime, we covered some different sections of the river and Xavi managed to hook into a cracking four pounder, the rest of us had fish up to 2lb and although not the numbers as the day before we certainly had our fill. After lunch, we said our goodbyes and the guys headed off, with an afternoon ahead I revisited the section we’d started on first thing, as it was a bit more wild than the rest of the river and with deep holes and big snags I was after one of the bigger fish that this river holds, plenty of smaller fish were caught but nothing bigger than 2lb and still no fish rising.
Monday which was my last day of fishing and my body was definitely feeling two days of hard fishing, I’ll admit I don’t charge quite as hard as I used to and I’m happy to take a few breaks during the day to sit, ponder and recharge! Whilst on one of these pondering sessions I saw the start of a very prolific caddis hatch and soon after fish were rising everywhere, I quickly spooled the euro nymphing line onto a foam rig winder, removed the 12” extension and in minutes had a 9’6 3wt fly rod rigged with a fly line, 14’ TroutHunter leader and 4’ of tippet, a Bob Wyatt Snowshoe Emerger was tied on the end and soon I was covering fish between 20’ and 50’ distance, as a 9’6 3wt with a fly line I’d be more than happy to fish that all day long if I was wanting to fish with one rod and have the luxury of swopping between a 10’6 euro and a 9’6 3wt conventional set up! After an hour the hatch petered off as did the rising fish so I spent fifteen minutes casting and both roll and overhead casts were a breeze, nice aerial and water mends and had the whole head of fly line out and shooting line out to 60’+, I’m not a distance caster as 90% of my fishing is on rivers and I’m mostly fishing no more than 50’ out! So with the rod back in its 10’6 guise I walked back up to a section I’d seen earlier and mentally noted as ‘fishy’, the section was a pool at the end of an island where the river rejoined to become one, frustratingly there was an angler who I watched fish through it twenty minutes earlier although he seemed to miss fishing the slack on the far side where the river right comes in. I picked up a small fish in the tail out and then fished through the nearside where the previous angler had been but not a touch, I then put the nymphs through the seam on the far side of the main current, the first drift wasn’t great but the second was on the money, the fish felt big as soon as I hooked into it and started heading off downstream towards the only snag on the far bank, then it decided to do a 180 and head back up forcing a rather quick change of rod angle, at least I was below it now and back in the driving seat. It’s funny when you’re hooked into bigger fish it seems that you’re in the fight for a lot longer but in reality it was barely two minutes until the fish was netted! With the time close to 5pm it was time to call it a day and finish on a massive high with one of those big fish hooked, caught and released with the added bonus of catching it in second hand water.
The rod performed better than expected, guide spacing works with or without the extension piece and I’d say if you’re looking for a tight line nymphing rod at both 10’6 and 9’6 plus a pretty good 9’6 for more tradition techniques you should definitely consider the Taniwha TNHX 9’6-10’6 2/3wt.
Here’s how hooking the biggie played out!