The most accurate fly rod

[NM]

Hi Rickard

Nothing

Spine isn't all its cracked up to be, just turn any rod, and it's clear. The spine is a residue from manufacturing, where the layers of carbon cloth overlap. As soon as rings are put on the blank, it's almost impossible to find the spine. Casting wise, it has no effect, but don't tell the rodbuilders...

Cheers
Lasse

Lasse,
I just checked my current accuracy rod. The spine is still very noticeable, and the rod sections still jump as I bend and rotate them. I won’t tell the rod builder (me), though.

On my previous accuracy rod, I had put the rings on slightly off compared to the soft side of the spine, and that caused the leader to sometimes kick sideways. Twisting the top sections and the top ring a bit relative to the rest of the rod fixed. It doesn’t matter much for fishing, but everything counts for tournament accuracy casting….

[VGB]

On my previous accuracy rod, I had put the rings on slightly off compared to the soft side of the spine, and that caused the leader to sometimes kick sideways.

Why only sometime Nils? If it's a built in fault, it should always occur

It doesn’t matter much for fishing

regards

Vince

[gordonjudd]

On my previous accuracy rod, I had put the rings on slightly off compared to the soft side of the spine, and that caused the leader to sometimes kick sideways.

Nils,
As discussed in this topic on the old board I have found that the axis you find using a static bend in a spine finder is different than the axis you find that gives a straight up and down path of the tip when it is clamped and vibrated. Thus the choice of the axis where you want to place the guides comes down to using the static spine axis so the rod does not twist when you a fighting a big fish or the dynamic spine to get better tip tracking in a vibration test.

I opt for the static spine since I don't want to have the rod twist while fighting a big fish and I am not sure that the tip will whirl when it has some tension from the line acting on it as it goes from MRF to RSP1.

Some high speed videos taken from a birds eye view would be interesting to see is there is much twisting of the tip in a cast.

If you are interested in the details of how to characterize spine and tip whirl Dave Tutlemen give a detailed description of what causes it at https://www.tutelman.com/golf/shafts/FL ... definition

Gordy

[Paul Arden]

I’ve turned my top three sections out by 60 degrees for more than two decades — for fishing, casting, you name it. I certainly haven’t noticed any problems. There are many casts that we use, that require us to cast a loop out of plane of the casting plane. If the spine was significant then this, as well as Spey Casting, would be problematic.

Yes, clamped rods might oval in their oscillations which will mean that any resultant waves in the rod leg will not be perfectly aligned to the loop plane. Is this actually going to make a difference to how the fly leg behaves? Not in my world.

Spine might have been an issue in the past, and maybe even with some modern blanks. But what if the natural bend and the spine are different? Won’t this also cause oval oscillations?

Cheers, Paul

[VGB]

I am not sure that the tip will whirl when it has some tension from the line acting on it as it goes from MRF to RSP1.

I agree with this as do the folks at Epic Fly Rods, who observe that “ The truth is that under the tension of the cast the rod will always bend according to the tension of the fly line against the guides and tiptop, the effect of the spine on a fully loaded rod is negligible. ”.

Interestingly, they also point out that:

Blanks that use helical wound construction tend not to exhibit a pronounced spine

If the spine was a major factor in accuracy, using older rods would seem a bit of a strange approach. You might conclude that rod design had gone backwards over the years?

I’ve previously played with a cheap 7 piece travel rod that I bought to fish with Walter about 2017.

For fun, I rotated the butt section in roughly 20 degree increments and even removed a section of the butt. Apart from having to adjust the haul because of the proximity of the stripping guide, it’s perfectly castable up to 70 ft with little discernible performance degradation. You can also mess about with the individual sections but shooting gets a bit messy.

There may be more benefits from aligning your chakras than the rod spine

Regards

Vince

[VGB]

The source of the 2 spines debate mentioned in Gordy’s link is most likely the stiffest and softest axis has been discussed here:

https://www.rodbuilding.org/read.php?2,278442,278532

[Paul Arden]

Many years ago I had a conversation with David Norwich who reasoned that the rod would tend to bend through the plane of bending, no matter where the rings are placed. I can see some logic in this, since it takes little effort to twist the tip around.

I’ve heard so many different options.

Cheers, Paul

[Lasse Karlsson]

Hi Rickard

Nothing

Spine isn't all its cracked up to be, just turn any rod, and it's clear. The spine is a residue from manufacturing, where the layers of carbon cloth overlap. As soon as rings are put on the blank, it's almost impossible to find the spine. Casting wise, it has no effect, but don't tell the rodbuilders...

Cheers
Lasse

Lasse,
I just checked my current accuracy rod. The spine is still very noticeable, and the rod sections still jump as I bend and rotate them. I won’t tell the rod builder (me), though.

On my previous accuracy rod, I had put the rings on slightly off compared to the soft side of the spine, and that caused the leader to sometimes kick sideways. Twisting the top sections and the top ring a bit relative to the rest of the rod fixed. It doesn’t matter much for fishing, but everything counts for tournament accuracy casting….

Hi Nils

Like Vince says, a flaw should be persistent, not only sometimes... and yeah, everything counts in tournament accuracy where its a 38 gram extra fast sink line, a broomstick and a splash pan, I get it, not a size 18 blue dun that needs to land across river in a tiny window to get the chance of a lifetime...

I used to play with putting my fluff on a ping pong ball, never had a rod that made my leader jump left or right. And I've only build like 100 flyrods in my time..

It's always funny thinking about all the carpenters blaiming their hammers for bending the nails

If you think it matters, it will matter. The mind is great in playing tricks on us.

Cheers
Lasse

[VGB]

He was a very interesting character. He told me about a rod he made that added some “splints” to force the bend in a particular and consistent direction, he couldn’t get anyone interested in it because it looked odd.

It would be interesting to list the top 5 sources of consistent error in an accuracy cast, misaligned rod spine wouldn’t make my list but it’s difficult to take environmental factors out of the equation.

Regards

Vince

[VGB]

If you think it matters, it will matter. The mind is great in playing tricks on us.

I was casting to a good trout in very shallow last year, less than a foot deep. My approach and first presentation was good but a small fish came from nowhere and took the fly. The good fish spooked but came back on the feed after about 15 minutes, I then had a case of the yips, I couldn’t get within 3ft of the fish, it took me about an hour to put a good cast on it.

Regards

Vince