Written by: Randy Dix
[Editor’s Note: Here’s an email from angler Randy Dix to Orvis chairman Leigh Perkins.]
Mr. Perkins:
I am an old (aging) friend of Rick Ruoff who introduced me to Mangrove Cay nearly three decades ago. Since then, we have kept in touch across the years.
I saw Rick this summer and told him that I had departed from my unnecessarily large stock of [REDACTED] fly rods to purchase a 5-weight Helios 2. To be honest, I was a bit skeptical about Orvis’s touting of this rod, having been wedded to the [REDACTED] forever.
So I took it out with a guide friend on the Missouri, attached to a Hatch reel, and fished it during an evening caddis hatch in late July. It might be an exaggeration to say that it was transforming, but I can tell you that I use the Helios 2 exclusively when fishing either dry flies or nymphs on my home waters. Its lightness and casting accuracy have made me a believer—enough so that I intend to replace my older, heavier-weight rods with the comparable Helios 2s.
Your rod has taken my fishing to a new direction. Seriously, it casts effortlessly, allows a very light presentation and is great fun when its mid-flex tip is fighting a hot Missouri River rainbow. Thanks.
Randy Dix (right) with a fine brown trout on Larry’s Creek on the South Island of New Zealand.
Photo courtesy Randy Dix
I HAVE A HELIOS 2 ALSO AND I’M WILLING TO GIVE UP ALL MY OTHER RODS EXCEPT FOR MY SUPERFINE 7.5 4WT–AN ABSOLUTE JOY TO CAST AND FISH WITH!! HAVE FLY FISHED FOR 40 YEARS AND HAVE GONE THROUGH A LOT OF DIFFERENT RODS, BUT HELIOS 2 LEAVES THEM ALL BEHIND.