Fly Rods - slow or fast action

[Paul Arden]

“The rod you use the most” might well apply to some people but it certainly didn’t apply to me, when stiffer rods immediately gave me more distance and have done ever since.

I agree if you release at or prior to RSP, then your carry will be slightly shorter. I’m pretty sure I left that open earlier in this thread. That has an impact on the backcast of course, where you’ll have head inside the initial loop formation.

Everyone will have some sort of optimal stiffness for distance, according to technique, conditions and strength. Also most flycasters can’t aerielise the MED head which is a minimum 86’ carry. The morphing dynamics of the MED loops change after the head is outside of the initial loop formation.

Cheers, Paul

[Lasse Karlsson]

Hi Paul

How far are you casting with a HT 12 compared to the HT5, HT7, HT8 and HT10? You must have done a ton of casts against the tape and have an equal ton of data to show?



Cheers
Lasse

[Lasse Karlsson]

Hi Lasse,

Hi Torsten

What was the stiffness of the rod Bernt Johansson used to throw his personal best distance cast indoors?

My hypothesis is that the rod you use the most, will yield the best results for you, and that there is no 2 meters freebie in going stiffer, though I have been told that alot on this board.

Good question, last time that I was in Tallinn - I think it was 2018 - everyone used pretty stiff rods, the Norwegians recommended a #9 SW rod to me. The question is, if good or powerful casters would benefit from such a stiff rod when they have used it for a while and I think it's still unknown. You'd need a long-time study under controlled conditions (indoor), I think that would work only for a fly casting club with access to an indoor venue and they'd need to record their scores with different rods regularly.

Another pro arguments for stiffer rods besides counterflex are the higher possible higher acceleration for the stiffer rod and the same tip path, more stored energy for the same flex, a con argument could be the higher MOI for stiffer rods. I think Merlin tried to simulate this once.

Greetings,
Torsten

Hi Torsten

He said it was alot softer than what he usually uses, its in the clip with Paul

The Swedes might have done some testing, but I doubt it, they like most others have just gyrated towards stiffer and stiffer. Like I said, Tor won in 14, and the gossip said 12 weight. And before it got known that it was in fact a 8 weight, people had already gone stiffer.
I know that the rod Bernt used to throw the rio line over 50 meters outdoors, would say 7 above the handle

Cheers
Lasse

[Paul Arden]

I thought Bernt was using an 11. I’ll ask him in the morning. I only cast the HT12 once for 5WT distance. It’s currently in Senegal and I’ve only had it in my hands for a couple of weeks. It’s well travelled and has spent time visiting Australia, Mexico and Florida… all without me. Phil had it for a while in Texas too.

So I don’t have a wealth of data. Only impressions from one session. I don’t think it goes as far as the HT10. The main reason being it’s very difficult to carry stable loops with a 90’ carry in any sort of breeze.

Cheers, Paul

[Rickard]

I think that the rods in the middle have one advantage. They are more forgiving to cast. The stiffness allows you to power through some errors in the casting. The very soft or very stiff rods demands more precise power application.

[Paul Arden]

If we take a rod at the very extreme, ie a broomstick, it’s very difficult to carry 90’. In fact I don’t think I can. The closer we get to that stiffness the more challenging it becomes. The HT12 certainly throws very tight loops, but they are also very unstable. The slightest breeze and they are out of control. I threw some long casts with it, but the consistency wasn’t there.

So I do think there is an optimal stiffness window. We know that very soft rods don’t help us. We have to use a very wide arc, counterflex is huge, often with the rod tip hitting the ground. We have this large “bouncing bomb” loop as Mike calls it. That’s not ideal for distance either. And if the rod is too soft it becomes very difficult to apply distance casting force without throwing tails.

If we look at Accuracy, the US team use much softer rods than many of us. I think there are two reasons for this. One is a longer smoother stroke and therefore tip path is more accuracy. And the other is that the softer rod is far less jarring on the hand. In Cumbria they used stiffer rods of course.

Cheers, Paul

[Torsten]

Hi Lasse,

well you know that the label does not tell much about the stiffness, a "#7 rod" in CCS units could have a ERN 9 or higher for instance. Your dataset indicates that the distance gets for you downhill with the XP - but I'm guessing to few data points to draw a conclusion. I think for a useful study you need a wider parameter sweep like ERN 3 to ERN 14 for instance. The measurement method has to be checked too, I've observed in some videos a bend much larger than the 1/3 rod length that the CCS specified. Maybe Merlin could post the result of his modelling and the differences he got for different rod types.

Greetings,
Torsten

He said it was alot softer than what he usually uses, its in the clip with Paul

The Swedes might have done some testing, but I doubt it, they like most others have just gyrated towards stiffer and stiffer. Like I said, Tor won in 14, and the gossip said 12 weight. And before it got known that it was in fact a 8 weight, people had already gone stiffer.
I know that the rod Bernt used to throw the rio line over 50 meters outdoors, would say 7 above the handle

[Paul Arden]

My mistake, Bernt uses the Helios 10WT not 11.

Cheers, Paul

[Lasse Karlsson]

Yeah, the fightbutt on the 11 is too big...

[Lasse Karlsson]

Hi Torsten

Yup I know, but use the term 7 in relation to the other rods used, it was a blank designed by Stefan Siikavaraa, and was in between the 6 and the 8 he designed.

The streamstix 5 is ERN 9.

And yeah, the XP shows just that, 20 datapoints for each rod does show a trend, except the TCX with only 10 datapoints. For me it is very much a bellcurve, tip is the rod I use most, either side of tip is slightly stiffer or softer, and then it curves of slowly. More slowly on the stiff side than on the soft side. A not would be that the TCR590 was my rod of choice before going for the TCX690, and data seems to show that too. Changed rods since doing this, So need to redo for more datapoints, might be a good reason to start throwing distance again.

Paul just want a one hit wonder, I think thats impossible with the big variable being the caster, I want to have high consistency, because the likelyhood of sticking a long one would be higher for me. The sudden rush of confidence with something new, it only last a short while, and thats not good enough for me. Been through that in alot of other sports

Cheers
Lasse