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Chicken or the egg?

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Lasse Karlsson
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Chicken or the egg?

#1

Post by Lasse Karlsson »

Paul just wrote this in another thread:
Paul Arden wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 1:00 pm

Personally while I like and prefer the lighter faster rods that are available nowadays, I think that the trend has been to go too stiff and lifeless for some reason. It’s partly as a consequence of this that lines are being made heavier than standard. I really can’t explain this. :)

Cheers, Paul
Now, since Paul sells rods that are for old folks and he can't make up his mind if a rod is a 5 or a 10 or a 6 above the cork, we know he is a bit off there. But having been throwing clotheslines around for the better part of three decades myself, I do remember when a certain British company started selling overweight lines back in the early 90's... rods didn't really start to get stiffer in the main market until slightly later, even though I do remember the RPL and the IMX being said to be underclassed and really should have a heavier line on them, back then... So what is it, did the trend really be stiffer rods and the line manufacturers responded? Or did some brands and manufacturers start to make heavier lines because, you know, mass is king and a heavier line does go further than a lighter one and rod manufacturers just repsonded to the "I fish a 5 in the salt because it says so above the handle (but my line is a 9 weight if you measure, so don't do that!) and that makes me a badass" crowd....

Me thinks it boils down to the arms race of wanting to buy stuff that makes you cast further/better/easier/notacompletemesseverycast, and the snake oil sellers respond in spades by claiming their lines are going further than the other guys, by weighing them up, and claiming the standard doesn't work and stuff, rather than the rod manufacturers thinking their rods are springs and a stiffer spring works better at propelling a line far.

Anybody here has a different take on it?

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Lasse
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Re: Chicken or the egg?

#2

Post by nicholasfmoore »

Hi Lasse,
mass is king and a heavier line does go further than a lighter one
I agree :D
the rod manufacturers thinking their rods are springs and a stiffer spring works better at propelling a line far.
I think the big spring myth is prevalent amongst anglers because of this. We know that this isn't how casting works, but many people do believe it, and perhaps it's one of the reasons why some anglers haul ineffectively because they think they are adding more 'load' and bending the spring more?
Me thinks it boils down to the arms race of wanting to buy stuff that makes you cast further/better/easier/notacompletemesseverycast
:D a line that has '#4' written on the box, but is a true #7 will go a long way. lighter lines are harder to cast, and the achievement of casting a full line is seen as a mark of skill amongst anglers. Feel is subjective, but they can feel the heavy lines more, and are then more connected to the cast. They possibly don't feel the lighter lines because of slack, poor timing, and not moving it as straight as they would a heavier line.

All the best
Nick M

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Paul Arden
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Re: Chicken or the egg?

#3

Post by Paul Arden »

I did say “partly” responsible :D

I don’t think Sage produced the TCR series because Jerry was using barstool lines!

If you read the interview I made of Michael Evans over 20 years ago about this subject, he said that he “had been working outside the AFTM system for years” :D

25 years ago In the UK it was said that American rods (which were then quite new on the market) were too stiff and they were habitually over lined by one AFTM. That’s the RPL :p

The vast majority of anglers in the US appear to fish rivers. So I don’t think it’s more distance. I think it’s more feel. I’ve commonly heard casting is 10-2. If you are casting 10-2 with a stiff rod then a heavier line will cause it to bend more (unless you are Lasse!) and consequently the tip path will be straighter.

Cheers, Paul
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George C
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Re: Chicken or the egg?

#4

Post by George C »

Blame this on striped bass.

When the fishery recovered in the very early 90's saltwater fly fishing exploded in the US. Prior to that only outdoor writers could use a fly rod in saltwater without being labeled of suspect sexuality. Freed of this risk, many thousands of us "taught" ourselves to fly cast. Distance, of course, was the whole objective. From years of spin fishing everyone "knew" that to throw far you needed to load your rod and obviously the best way to do that was with a long arc and lots of power. If that didn't work then clearly, in addition to lying, a better rod was required. The few guys (all three of them) who could cast a fly rod well lived in Florida. They understood that stiff rods worked well in wind. If it worked for them then it clearly would work for the rest of us, or at least that's all the rod companies had to go on. So they invented the word "modulus" and educated us as to how we were all suffering from a severe deficiency thereof. Now, in America, good medical care (as well as bad) is expensive. So, naturally, treating our modulus deficiency was no different. Yet for the chance of an 80' cast (estimated, of course) we gladly paid up. Sadly, in spite of higher and higher IM numbers and lots of X's and little iiii's added to our rod names, we still struggled and things began to look desperate. Fortunately a solution appeared in Lou Tabory's "Inshore Fly Fishing" published to wide acclaim in 1992. He advocated up-lining rods, and had pictures of very large fish to prove it worked. With the secret revealed we all quickly followed. At last we could feel something behind us and our now heavier humongous loops propelled by all that miraculous modulus went a good several feet further. Puddled mess aside, we were finally able to cast 80' of line, even if only went 62 feet. Here also occurred a eureka moment for the line companies. If Sage and Loomis were getting rich treating mankind's modulus deficiency then surely they, the line companies, could do the same by addressing our weight problem. Why, they deduced, spread all that weight somewhere that never got in the air when you could cram it into a short little distance, sort of like an elongated spinning lure, for guys who after all cast their fly rods just like spinning rods. Brilliant! A major breakthrough without which the sale $100 fly lines would have never been possible. Nor did it all stop there. The poor little trout guys, ridiculed and ignored for so many years, had no desire to be left behind. They demanded modulus and expensive fly lines, as well. And America, bastion of equality and fairness that we are, was happy to take their money, too. And thus, an industry was saved and a sport flourished.


And so, Lasse, you see it was not the badass crowd that drove all this innovation. They had no media exposure until years later after Al Gore had invented the internet..... and pirated music, together with porn, had popularized it. Rather, it was the dumbass crowd that drove, and still drives, all this innovation. And I'm proud to have been part of it.......I think.
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Re: Chicken or the egg?

#5

Post by Graeme H »

George C wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 2:22 am Blame this on striped bass.

When the fishery recovered in the very early 90's saltwater fly fishing exploded in the US. Prior to that only outdoor writers could use a fly
...

And thus, an industry was saved and a sport flourished.
Brilliant George. :D
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Paul Arden
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Re: Chicken or the egg?

#6

Post by Paul Arden »

:D :D I enjoyed that George!


Since the vast majority of anglers buy Rod first and line second I do think it was initially driven by Rod stiffness. And I would say it’s Sage setting the standard. Maybe even Sage marketing. Jerry was using a GPX to test his rods.

However that line companies are manufacturing heavier lines than AFFTA standard and putting a lighter number on the box is nuts.

Even we have played a part in this with distance casting and instructing. If the majority of casters can’t double haul they will have problems with a “correctly” lined rod.

Still it makes life interesting. Arguably this is why glass fibre came back. Many anglers nowadays never cast a carbon fibre rod 30-40 years ago. I think they would be surprised :D

Cheers, Paul
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nicholasfmoore
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Re: Chicken or the egg?

#7

Post by nicholasfmoore »

Hi Paul,
The vast majority of anglers in the US appear to fish rivers. So I don’t think it’s more distance. I think it’s more feel. I’ve commonly heard casting is 10-2. If you are casting 10-2 with a stiff rod then a heavier line will cause it to bend more (unless you are Lasse!) and consequently the tip path will be straighter.
The heavier line is perhaps a quick fix for a default stroke, as you say the heavier line will give someone a straighter tip path than before. Additionally, i think they can feel the heavier line line better, so they don't wave the rod around as much, and consciously/subconsciously narrow their big arc. A much softer rod would perhaps suit a lot of anglers, with a true to weight line. But most fishing shops/advice is tailored around buying a rod first, then a line, and other bits and pieces. It's cheaper to over line than under/over rod :p Of course you loose the fishing benefits then.
However that line companies are manufacturing heavier lines than AFFTA standard and putting a lighter number on the box is nuts.


It's gone mad, the AFFTA should be simple, but now everyone has to know about lines and the true weights etc to fish the flies they want to fish. The number on the box is pretty meaningless. I think it's a combination of the spring myth, lack of feel, and non adjustable stroke and perhaps gripping far too hard, which also reduces feel. :blush: The problem is that most anglers don't practice i think. Some don't practice because they don't know how, and some don't practice because they don't want to, and just want to catch fish.

All the best
Nick M

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Lasse Karlsson
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Re: Chicken or the egg?

#8

Post by Lasse Karlsson »

Paul Arden wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 2:19 am I did say “partly” responsible :D

I don’t think Sage produced the TCR series because Jerry was using barstool lines!

If you read the interview I made of Michael Evans over 20 years ago about this subject, he said that he “had been working outside the AFTM system for years” :D

25 years ago In the UK it was said that American rods (which were then quite new on the market) were too stiff and they were habitually over lined by one AFTM. That’s the RPL :p

The vast majority of anglers in the US appear to fish rivers. So I don’t think it’s more distance. I think it’s more feel. I’ve commonly heard casting is 10-2. If you are casting 10-2 with a stiff rod then a heavier line will cause it to bend more (unless you are Lasse!) and consequently the tip path will be straighter.

Cheers, Paul
Yes, you did say partly, but you haven't so far given the other reasons :p

Yeah, the TCR, made on the SP+ taper, but 4 piece instead of 3 ;) And as you say, Jerry was using lines one weight heavier than standard to design his rods, all of them... Still prefered them with standard or one below for fishing, unless it was shootingheads, then I don't count as I go overboard :D

And yeah, plenty people claim to work outside of AFFTA, that AFFTA is defunct and doesn't work etc. and all of them basicly use AFFTA, but in the sense that they want to put as low a number on rod and line from AFFTA, but use a line that corrsponds to a much higher number in AFFTA... Hence the bricks on a string ;-) Because using a rod with a low number makes you a badass in the eyes of da boyzzzz....

Same in DK, then again, the bruce and walker hexagraph was a top rod in the UK wasn't it :p

And nope, you have the clip of me with three rods, double up on weight does bend the rod more, one lineclass up, not so much, but mass is king as we know :whistle: even 10-2 works with a broomstick if acceleration is sound, but majority think they cant feel it load, since what they feel for is the counterflex, and that you get with heavier lines in spades with a 10-2 whack-a-mole stroke.. 10-15 years ago, if the rod said 6 on the blank, you where adviced a 14 gram shootinghead 9-10 meters (a piece of 8 weight line basicly), today, only Lars uses that, and the consensus is 16 gram 8-9 meters (which is more like a piece of 10 weight line ) :D And this is even for river fishing, just if you think it only applies to coastal chucking.

Cheers
Lasse
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Re: Chicken or the egg?

#9

Post by Lasse Karlsson »

Paul Arden wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 5:26 am :D :D I enjoyed that George!


Since the vast majority of anglers buy Rod first and line second I do think it was initially driven by Rod stiffness. And I would say it’s Sage setting the standard. Maybe even Sage marketing. Jerry was using a GPX to test his rods.

However that line companies are manufacturing heavier lines than AFFTA standard and putting a lighter number on the box is nuts.

Even we have played a part in this with distance casting and instructing. If the majority of casters can’t double haul they will have problems with a “correctly” lined rod.

Still it makes life interesting. Arguably this is why glass fibre came back. Many anglers nowadays never cast a carbon fibre rod 30-40 years ago. I think they would be surprised :D

Cheers, Paul
The Loomis IMX and GLX was same ballpark in stiffness, so was Scott STS etc..

Fully agree!!

Ah, correctly lined is a can of worms there, the number on the blank is just a recommendation from the designer for the type of fishing he/she intended the rod to be used with, otherwise you would have decided better than 5/6 or 5/10 wouldn't you ;) Funny enough, I have had most succes with the stiff rods and a line following the standard to the number on the side of said rod when teaching a number of things for beginners and intermediates, especially teaching feel..

Fiber glass came back because there needed to be a new thing, not because of stiff rods.. Just got my hands on a 40ish year old fibreglass rod, the wonder rod from shakespeare ;-) Apart form being slightly heavy, it's also quite stiff :)

Cheers
Lasse
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Re: Chicken or the egg?

#10

Post by Paul Arden »

The GLX was a totally different rod. Personally I preferred the IMX. The original Redington DFR that Mel Kreiger apparently designed or assisted. The XP, RPL. Scott STS. Personally I think these were some of the best rods ever made.

Everyone talks about the tip, lightness, crispness, recovery. But getting the lower section right is equally important. Especially for mid to long range accuracy. Rods that are very stiff in the lower half - and offer little feel - I really don’t like at all. And I’m convinced they cause Tennis Elbow.

I don’t think it’s that difficult to design a really good rod. What is difficult, maybe even impossible, is to improve it every few years.

Anyway I should be fishing! Back Saturday :D

Cheers, Paul
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