Hi Gary
My point was exactly that, when one rod threw a tail, so did the other, when one threw a large loop, so does the other. It’s a stable part of my mythbusting demos, which I have been doing now for 6 years. To throw a tail, you need to apply force erratic, inconsistent with a spike at some point to make the rodtip dip and then rise. Without that, No tail. Its almost impossible to tail a broomsticks, slightly easier but still almost impossible to tail handcasting. Use a bending rod, it becomes easier.
I have been accused of photoshopping the clips, that one rod just follows along with the other (two camps, one go the soft follows the stiff, the other that the stiff follows the soft...) and that I am so good that I can dampen one of the rods etc. And no, first of I don't even have a computer, second its just the same input for both, not much you can do when holding on to both is difficult (got small hands, and is a skinny mofo) in the end the thing just hammers home that a good strike is a good stroke, a bad is a bad. Regardless of the stiffness of the rod. And no rod hides your faults. What you percieve as feel might differ, but that is a different ballgame.
The only way to get really different outcmes is to either use a ridiculesly stiff rod (I demo with a very stiff 8 Wright and a noodle glassfiber 6 and use two 6 weight lines) so already outside what the cast majority would use, and you need much stiffer (have used a 12 in a pinch without much difference) that that to alter results, or use very different lengths, and throw so slow that only the longest rod have turnover. But then the excercise is rigged and not comparable, which was the point of it...
I did the excercise originalt, because I did not experience having to change anything between throwing a stiff or a soft rod, and I was consistently told (and its still in alot of tests) that I had to slow down with a soft rod, cast slower etc... Turns out its false, and logic should have shown that in the first place
Cheers
Lasse