"The two most important characteristics of a fly rod are Action and Power"
-Tim Rajeff
Today's guest is none other that Tim Rajeff. Tim is a fly rod designer, instructor, national and world casting champion and owner of Rajeff Sports. Based out of Vancouver Washington Rajeff manufactures ECHO Fly Rods and distributes AirFlo Fly Lines in North America. We get to chat with Tim while he was at Katherine’s vacation home. This was a rare moment out of a very busy schedule when Tim could sit down and share his thoughts on trends in the fly fishing world, casting a fly line over 100 mph and some amazing new fly rods from ECHO.
After spending his youth fishing and casting in California and Oregon, Tim’s fishing career took a turn when he took a job working for the Fenwick Fly Fishing School in Montana during 1973. In 1985 he made the trek north and began guiding in Alaska, eventually moving on to develop and build the first fishing camps on Russia’s Kola Peninsula, 60 miles above the Arctic Circle. He spent six years managing these camps before returning to the states in 1994. Upon his return he began working for a premium domestic rod manufacturer, where he worked as head of the engineering department and the Fly Brand Manager. He worked there until 2001 and along the way learned every aspect of fly rod design and manufacturing.
Tim is also a co founder of the Fish Need Water Initiative that we highlighted in Episode 17 with Tyler Allen.
The two rods we highlight in today's episode will be available very soon here in the shop and we will have some demos for you to try out. We are really excited about the One Hand Spey (OHS) and especially the Boost Beach which we were able to check out at this summers casting competition, Caffeinated Casting.
As always I really appreciate you taking the time to listen, provide feedback on the podcasts and support at the Reno Fly Shop. Hope you enjoy my conversation with Tim Rajeff.
