Shawn Combs, vice president of Scott Fly Rods, handed me the new GT 8106-4 on a stretch of the South Platte that runs under a bridge in an industrial section of Denver, and the carp were in the foam below the weirs.
The GT 8106-4 is 8’10”, four-piece, built on Scott’s X-Core blank with ARC2 reinforcement. The new internal ferrule is 20 percent lighter than the previous design. Hardware includes a milled aluminum reel seat with Type 3 hard coat, cocobolo inserts, flor-grade cork, titanium-framed zirconia no-tangle stripping guides, snake guides, alignment dots, and 12-inch and 20-inch measuring wraps, a Scott signature that anyone who has waded deep or measured a fish against a rod tip knows by feel. The blank ships unsanded, with the logo, model name, and rod details hand-inscribed. It comes in a partitioned cloth liner inside a logoed aluminum rod tube and carries Scott’s Unconditional Lifetime Warranty. At $1,095, the build reflects where the money went.
The GT is deeper-flexing and lighter in hand than most 6-weights, with a stiffer mid section and lighter tip than the previous GS series. The previous GS models were lovely dry fly rods but soft enough through the middle that streamer fishing and distance work pushed them past where they wanted to go. The GT loads off the top half of the blank, which keeps the backcast high without slowing your tempo. It has more range than its predecessor in both directions. John Duncan at Telluride Angler, who put it through drys, nymphs, and streamers on a RIO Gold and SA Infinity Taper, calls it the all-purpose 6-weight the GS series never quite was.
Foam Carp on the South Platte
The Denver South Platte has been running heavy Baetis and caddis hatches, and the carp have found the foam. Below the weirs, spent adults and organic debris collect in thick surface mats, and the fish sit underneath eating from the underside with their faces pointed up. They’re sensitive to presentation. One splashy cast or an abrupt noise on the bank and they’re gone.
The rig is a fuzzy egg on top with a lightly weighted carp fly hung three to four inches below, my go-to being the Hipster Dufus. The egg sits in or just above the film. It catches fish on its own and serves as an indicator when something eats the dropper below the foam where you can’t see the take. Setting the fly chain into foam without disturbing it requires a rod that can dial back to almost nothing on the delivery. The soft tip absorbs the energy at the end of the stroke and the flies land quiet.
What some call the “Scott Feel” is the transmission of subtle information through the blank and into the cork, and it’s why this rod works for this technique. A carp eating a dropper below the foam doesn’t telegraph the take with a bobber dive or a line twitch you can see. You feel a slight load, maybe a tick of resistance, and you set. Miss that signal and you miss the fish. The GT transmits it clearly, both through the cork and in the loaded feel of the rod when it’s carrying line. The same quality that lets you feel a size 22 dry dragging on flat water tells you when a carp has the Hipster Dufus six inches below a foam mat.
When one eats in close quarters and moves, the soft tip cushions the first run. You fight the fish with the whole rod bent into it, not just the butt section. Guided clients have landed a lot of fish this way, and the GT is now rigged for this technique on every trip. It also turns over heavier carp patterns for tailing fish at distance. The X-Core construction and stiffer mid section generate enough load to carry a weighted fly on a longer delivery without the loop falling apart.
Bass on Poppers and the DSP
The RIO Smallmouth Bass WF6F has been on this rod since the first warmwater session. At distance the head carries enough weight to load the rod and turn over wind-resistant bugs without extra false casts. On urban ponds targeting largemouths with poppers, the rod produced blowups on nearly every cast over holding water. Not every fish was big enough to get the popper in its mouth, but the ones that were stayed pinned, and even a 10-inch largemouth puts a full bend in a soft 6-weight.
Bigger smallmouth on the South Platte, two to three pounds in current, load the rod into a full bend from the cork to the tip. The 8’10” length works in tight quarters along brushy banks where a longer rod becomes a liability. Parker Thompson at Telluride Angler goes to the RIO Elite Technical Trout WF6F on his GT for trout duty. My clients have been landing foam carp on a Hipster Dufus. All of us are fishing the same rod.
Put a fuzzy egg quietly into a foam mat, transmit a subtle carp eat through the cork, cushion the first run of a fish that outweighs most trout, turn over a weighted carp fly at distance. Those are the credentials. The soft tip that keeps a largemouth pinned on a jump is the same tip that protects light tippet on a dry fly. The mid section that carries a heavy carp rig also drives a streamer from the front of a drift boat. Everything the GT does on warm water: the feel, the cushion, the power, it does on trout water too. One rod for wherever a 6-weight takes you.
