Fly weight & drag

[John Waters]

Hi Torsten,

An excellent video series by Jurgen. Volker and Heinz are great coaches, fly and plug. Their focus on the 1 percenters is what distinguishes them. Germany has been a leader in both casting and coaching excellence for decades.

John

[gordonjudd]

if they're unstable (trundle) they're sorted out.

Thorsten,
Thanks for posting that video. I wish that it had English subtitles, but was impressed with the detail that elite casters pay to their equipment.

Do you know if the huge first ring makes much of difference in the distance they get? I stopped using #20 stripper guide rings after Aitor's video convinced me large guides did not make much of a difference in flycasting.

I had not seen that shot putter's spin in the 3/8 oz distance casting event in the U.S. but expect that by adding distance to the force application on the plug would have its benefits.

Thanks again,
Gordy

[John Waters]

Hi Gordy,

Like in everything, the differences in performance reflect the attention paid to the detail.

Guide size depends on the line profile created by the reel.

Here are my three plug distance rods and reels I use in the 3 plug distance events. The rod on the right is the shortest and is the one used for the single handed 7.5 gram event, in which the rotational discus type throw technique now dominates. The large guides reflect the spiraling line profile generated by all fixed spool (spinning) reels. The only difference with the reel shown, to that of a conventional spinning reel is that the line is laid as a cross weave on the spool.

The rod on the left is the rod I use for the double handed 18 gram distance event, which like the 7.5 gram event, requires the use of a fixed spool reel.

The rod in the centre is used for the 18 gram double handed distance event, which necessitates the use of a revolving drum (bait caster) reel, in which case the line profile is predominantly linear shaped. For that line profile, much smaller diameter guides are used.

In fly casting the line shape entering the stripper guide is linear so guides have relatively small diameters, although the the impact of the line hitting the rod is worthy of consideration for distance. I know a tournament rod designer and producer who aligns the guides on his fly distance rods to manage that. Amazing the innovation that originated at either a casting pond or court over the decades.

John

[George C]

I'm surprised to see those guide systems still in use. A huge cone of flight layout certainly had its place in rods built for stiff mono (or fluorocarbon line) once upon a time.......and perhaps it still does for light line competition stuff but for fishing purposes such layouts are long dead and buried. The huge heavy guides have big effects on both light short and long powerful rods. About 10+ years ago the trend began to channel down line more quickly in a guide layout referred to the NGC (new guide concept). Purportedly the trade off in increased friction was outweighed by diminished air resistance to coils traveling out the rod untamed.....although such claims were pushed by Fuji who had an interest in convincing anglers to use more (albeit much smaller) guides.

With the shift to braid for most spinning applications guide systems have evolved even further to something called "rapid reduction" layouts. These use a relatively small 16-25mm high guide with loop shedding design, placed further from the reel, as a collector guide. The tamed line is then quickly brought down to the blank with 1or 2 small ringed (8-12mm) intermediate height guides then channeled out the rod with a series of small running guides. This allows one to build much lighter and more responsive rods than other layouts. Casting distance with braid is improved over the large cone of flight layouts because guide looping is handled much better (the difference in line noise is impressive). Casting distance with mono does not seem noticeably different but my experience is fishing not competition. Using smaller (but still quite high) collectors, even with braid, requires some distance from the spool face particularly for large spooled reels. If, such as with heavy tuna spin gear, such guide placement produces unsatisfactory static loads, then large loop shedding guides (like KW40mm) placed close in still have a role.

As for fly rod collector guide sizing, there is little study of which I am aware. Lefty Kreh, famously, advocated for large collector guides in his Saltwater Fly Fishing book after he and others used photography to demonstrate how much collector guide over run occurs even with fly lines. Before the advent of loop shedding guides some builders advocated mounting the first collector guide "backwards" to limit frame-line contact (indeed this was standard with NGC spinning layouts). Whether for fly line using a large guide improves things or, as is now thought to be the case in spinning, just passes problems on to the next guide, I'm unsure.

[George C]

This picture shows the evolution of spinning collectors on top. On the bottom are the typical fly rod collector choices (20mm in this case). The old MN mounted backwards, the loop shedding KW mounted forwards, and the new option (that Scott is using) an Rec Cerecoil. This latter guide is very light and the nickel/titanium wire is set into the ceramic ring which might reduce friction when the line does over run the ring.

[John Waters]

Hi George,

As always, you set up your gear to best suit your objective. There is always a trade off between guide weight rod bend recovery rate which is equally applicable to fishing and tournament casting. That is why the guides on the 7.5 gram rod are smaller than those on the 18 gram rod, but are still relatively large when compared to Fuji and other manufacturer's guides. Fuji did advocate that distance is optimised when you "choke" the spinning reel coils at a point along the rod, and then have the line travel in a straight line through the guides, after that choke point. Looks great, but did not outcast the large guides on the casting field. The tape measure is absolutely objective.

John

[Mangrove Cuckoo]

Over the years I have found that for large saltwater flyrods, the stripping guide is commonly the Achilles heel. It seems stupid to send a warranted rod back simply because the ring fell out of a guide, but I have done it a number of times. There is currently a rod in my den that I am debating on whether to return for new guides or simply retire it. Saltwater is tough on guides, particularly the frames on "not-top of the line" models.

I can attest to the fact that a Cerecoil guide can be stepped on without any apparent damage. Don't ask me how I know this.

[Torsten]

Hi,

I've created a new thread for this topic. Please use it for the discussion about fly rod guides.

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Back to the fly weight & drag question:

I tried yesterday some experiments with the 200 grains Skagit head, with some wind I've cast well over 30m/100ft and the mentioned 20cm pike fly.
Then I added a 1 grams lead bead, this was maybe even slightly better. Added another 2,5 g lead bead .. well that got unpleasant to cast. Sure I still managed over 20m, but the fly had then the tendency to kick around. I wouldn't cast it then overhead, this is really chuck & duck ..

I'd say the major problem is not that the fly is faster than the fly line, but rather that kick at the end of the cast because the (heavy) fly has not fully dissipated the kinetic energy. The right balance would be that the fly is heavy enough to unroll the leader but has almost zero kinetic energy at the reversal point.

I think this video was mentioned in another thread, found it quite interesting.


Torsten.