Cheap Fly Rods

[Michal Duzynski]

Hi All
What are your thoughts and experiences in casting bottom shelf fly rods.
A part of cheap materials being used, that might break the rod with 70 foot line carry and hard stroke and maybe few others thing I cant think about it now???
Mine $1 9 weight is still strong, but the guides they used scrach my line badly while hauling....

Anyway
You are in the shop to tests 2 rods on a short casts. 100$ rod and 1000$ rod. Where do you see the difference?
Or is it another marketing bullshit, that cheap rod will make your life miserable in fly fishing?
Cheers
Mike

[Lasse Karlsson]

Hi Mike

If the rings scratch your line, replace them...

My take is pretty much summed up in this clip I made some years back, when 5 guys told a beginner on a online forum here in Denmark exactly what you said in your last line. I asked how many of them had tried the outfit(it was rod reel and line) and they said no, but the price indicated that it was crap... In retrospect, I should have gotten paid by the chain that sold the set....
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Xu3D0C1jB2c

A cheap rod is cheap because its mass produced, uses cheap labor, cheap fittings, and mostly quality control doesn't really exist... That said, alot of stuff also gets bought in cheap and then marked up with a higher retail price...

Cheers
Lasse

[Lasse Karlsson]

Oh, and as curious sidenote, Mike Hertiage and me where once told of by the salesrep at a show, because we where trying out arod and line from a high end manufacturer, and naturally tried to see if we could carry the line to the backingknot. That is not how you are supposed to use the rod, now please leave....

Cheers
Lasse

[Michal Duzynski]

That is not how you are supposed to use the rod, now please leave....

Cheers
Lasse

that is funny.

With your Aldi set up, Im guessing you could take it to the stream for fishing...
But did you feel it was crap when you cast basic casts in your video? If yes what was ?? If not rock&roll, meaning another marketig bulshit

P.s
I dont use 9wt,( ha ha ha) so I wont bother, it was a gift, so I leave it

[Lasse Karlsson]

The aldi set up, you could take straight to the stream, coast, I would change the leader as it was 9 feet endning in something like 5x tip
Line was fine, pretty standard 38 feet belly slightly overweight, nothing impressive. Reel was cheap plastic, would do the job fine unless you're going for something with a realistic chance of seeing backing, and then you won't buy a setup in aldi in denmark Rod was fine too, bit thin walled, and the cork was a bit swampy, then again, if you expect high grade cork handle on a 10 euro rod, you might want to reexamine your expectations...
Nothing crap about it casting, slight tip wobble, but I've tried high end rods that where worse...
And as you can see in the clip, you can even throw tails on the backcast with it

Cheers
Lasse

[Paul Arden]

There are some excellent lower priced rods. I'm thinking of a Shakespeare Oddessy that retailed for 60 quid. Ok the finish and the materials were crap as one would expect perhaps. Price is not an indication always of quality. Particularly because there are many budget blanks being sold at high end prices. However be that as it may, it's not possible to produce a bells-and-whistles rod on the cheap. I'm quite sure that our build costs are double the price of the highest second place manufacturer. And I really do mean that. The tubes alone cost 40GBP landed (I could get them for less but the end caps will fall off). The rings on the HT10 cost us something around 85 quid at trade (retail is around 140 I believe). Top cork is not cheap.

I am considering a very low cost rod using a different brand for my working friends in Malaysia. I would like to put something together, rod reel and line for around 100 quid. From China and Korea this is quite possible but there will be no design input from me and I'll just do what everyone else does and pick from a range of suitable rods.

I'm under pressure to reduce my build costs of the HT rod so I can sell through distributors. However I don't wish to do this simply because it will affect quality. As I've pointed out, what would they like? Cheaper fittings? Inferior cork? Shoddy workmanship? A blank with less design and more tip wobble?

So from my perspective there is a massive difference between expensive rods that are built on well-designed blanks with top quality carbon sheets, using anodised fittings with the best rings, compared to the oppososite where you can't be cheap enough. Where the minefield lies is in determining whether your 600GBP rod is really worth the price or whether it's simply a cheap rod with an expensive price tag.

Will it make a difference to your life and a fair question is is the price difference good or poor value? That's entirely up to you. For me, obviously I believe in it, otherwise I'd be selling cheap crap. When I know there is a rod out there that will feel like an extension of my dick then I want it!

Cheers, Paul

[steelehead]

Hi Mike,
I've been through that cheap rod thing because when I started flyfishing my local shop dude gave me a beginners setup (5wt rod, reel, line, leader) for 150 euros. The rod alone would have been around 70 euros. I took the rod to a local casting meeting where everyone agreed on the line (5 wt) being too light for the rod and telling me to better buy a beginner rod being sold in an affiliated shop that costs 250 euros... I played around with lines and a 6 wt (heavy 5 wt) fits perfectly and everyone likes the casting performance now.
Now some years later I own some more rods which I build up from scratch under supervision by a rod building expert and friend of mine. To me the main difference lies in the components used, especially the cork handle and the rings used.
I cannot complain about the blank of the cheap rod - everyone casting it loved the action and wondered about the rod being a cheapskate. In fact the comparably heavy blank took some heavy beatings with ease and I guess some 5wt shootout rods would have been broken if they were falling of a car roof, thrown on the river bank, etc.
There is a lot of marketing and ego in rod business, I guess that roughly a tenth of flyfishers need a performance rod for their style of fishing and casting but love the marketing and maybe the exclusiveness of owning an expensive rod.
Best,
Christian

[Paul Arden]

Not everyone is sexy, but a lot of people buy Levi's jeans Anyway I don't believe that "high performance" is only suitable for advanced casters. Rods that are particularly stiff might only suit a certain type of competition caster, but you don't need to be a great caster to cast top end rods to notice the difference. Although double-hauling is necessary IMO. Certainly your casting won't suffer for having a top-notch rod, in the same way that driving a fast car is fun too.

There are good blanks out there in the budget range. I'm put off designing in the Far East simply because your exact-same designed blank will be very quickly available to everyone. I've been part of rod "testing" for companies interested in selecting a range from Korea. You'd be surprised what turns up in the packages. If I put two years - as well as a considerable amount of money - into designing a blank I certainly don't want anyone else having direct access to it.

Cheers, Paul

[Lasse Karlsson]

When I know there is a rod out there that will feel like an extension of my dick then I want it!

Cheers, Paul

Soft and noodly in other words, considered looking at glasfiber?



Cheers
Lasse

[Paul Arden]

Ha! No comment!