I'm in the market for a new 7wt.
So am I but I have yet to begun to research/test #7's. My benchmark which I have fished but never owned was Sage's TCX. Therefore Method, SALT and new X all warrant a look. I am enthused to expand my insight into Loomis's new Asquith and my instincts tell me it could be a top contender. Meridian must surly be test cast and a not-so-dark horse is Douglas's SKY as I was impressed test casting the #6 and really like the #9 I fished Montauk with last fall.
7-weights are one of those odd (literally) sizes too big for trout except for throwing bigger streamers and mostly too light for the salt where larger and heavier flies suggest #8's and up. However, there is a unique sweet spot. When fishing the flats be it for bonefish or stripped bass, there are shallow water areas where fish are feeding on small bait or little shrimp and sparse light flies are in order. Particularly on incoming tides where one must wade ankle deep water flooding toward the mangroves hunting fresh tails, a crisp #7 with a long leader and translucent un-weighted shrimp fly is optimal. OK, a light 8-weight is fine but there is just something special about a great 7-weight as it is like trout tackle for the spring creeks of the sea. One does not have to have one but, like clogrennane, I want one.
On the last day of a Bahamian trip a few years ago my wife and I fished such an early tide. Our guide quietly pooled along a mangrove edge of a little cay, I was on the bow and he almost whispered, "There, between does two mangroves on the inside at 10:O'clock, dat's de fish we been looking for!" There, indeed he was, barely covered by only inches of water maybe two or three feet inside the gnarly roots, the big boy was rooting about. It took a straight overhead cast with minimal false casting to lay the tippet between mangroves without hooking them. The shrimp fly landed with barely a plop and the fish turned mere inches and engulfed it. I raised my rod tip, the bone bolted to the left of the mangrove my fly had landed to the right of and, with a big wake heading for deeper water was gone. "OK, Mon, maybe 11, 12 pounds, 'least you got to feed him, Mon." I'm still shaking just writing about it. I do want a new 7-weight.
