Diamondback Ideal Nymph - Rod

[Facemelted]

Hello all,

I was curious to find out if anyone here on the forum has purchased and fished the aforementioned rod...?
I was in TCO State College yesterday, picking up some tying materials and picked one of these up... the 10'10" 2wt I believe it was. Felt exceptionally heavy in the tip.... which I'm not sure about.

Any info on its on-stream performance would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

 

[afishinado]

Hello all,

I was curious to find out if anyone here on the forum has purchased and fished the aforementioned rod...?
I was in TCO State College yesterday, picking up some tying materials and picked one of these up... the 10'10" 2wt I believe it was. Felt exceptionally heavy in the tip.... which I'm not sure about.

Any info on its on-stream performance would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

Any longer rod, especially one close to 11' long is going to feel "exceptionally heavy in the tip".

That rod is a niche rod designed for Euro nymphing exclusively and will not suit any or many other types of fishing.

If one would buy such a rod, a very heavyweight reel would be needed to balance out the outfit.

 

[DrownedFish]

Devin Olsen has this to say about the model you're asking about:

"This rod is my favorite of the bunch for fishing micro leaders on wider rivers where reach is important but loading a cast with light nymphs is still necessary. It has plenty of power to fight large fish. So far, I landed a carp of around 7-8 pounds and a rainbow that I taped at 25" on this rod. The cushion in the tip allowed me to handle both of them on 6x tippet without much trouble. It is a very good all around nymphing rod as long as aggressive casts are not mandatory. The soft tip does recover slower than the 3 weight as you would expect, so I find I need to wait a bit longer for the rod to unload on my back cast to maintain accuracy. This characteristic means that it also performs best in calmer conditions as it is difficult to punch accurate casts into the wind or to tuck cast with authority. Given its length, it also performs better when paired with a reel in the 5.5-6 oz range for balance but it does have a bit less swing weight than the 10' 10" 3 weight."

You can see his review of the other models on the product page at tacticalflyfisher.com

 

[Nocktavius]

Curious myself how these compare to the T&T contact 2 (I own two of those and they are my primary rods). Since they are the brainchild of Joe Goodspeed, I’d expect they are pretty similar to those rods. Funnily enough I’ve never felt my 10’ 2 wt or 10’9” 3 wt was tip-heavy though. Did you balance it with a sufficiently heavy reel?

 

[Facemelted]

Any longer rod, especially one close to 11' long is going to feel "exceptionally heavy in the tip".

That rod is a niche rod designed for Euro nymphing exclusively and will not suit any or many other types of fishing.

If one would buy such a rod, a very heavyweight reel would be needed to balance out the outfit.

Hey Afish,

Yea I understand what the rod is designed for, modern nymphing practices. It just blew me away how tip heavy it was. I fish a Hardy UL-LL 10'8" 0-2wt for most of my nymphing and all the weight is in the butt section.

Which kind of brings up another point/argument. Balancing outfits. I don't do it; I just use the lightest possible set up I can get away with.

My main concern about the rod, being that it felt so incredibly soft throughout... hook sets and slow recovery rate. I feel like this is a bad combination and ends up in "bouncing fish".

 

[afishinado]

Hey Afish,

Yea I understand what the rod is designed for, modern nymphing practices. It just blew me away how tip heavy it was. I fish a Hardy UL-LL 10'8" 0-2wt for most of my nymphing and all the weight is in the butt section.

Which kind of brings up another point/argument. Balancing outfits. I don't do it; I just use the lightest possible set up I can get away with.

My main concern about the rod, being that it felt so incredibly soft throughout... hook sets and slow recovery rate. I feel like this is a bad combination and ends up in "bouncing fish".

To each his own. Fighting to hold up a tip-heavy 11' rod all day, especially when holding your rod up when tight-lining would be torture!!!

Think of it this way, pick up a 2x4 by the end (if you can). Now pick it up and hold in the middle where it balances. Which is heavier?? Of course, they are the same weight, by being balanced makes it feel lighter.

 

[Facemelted]

True enough!