Rod Preference Poll

[sixfootfenwick]

No offense, but I sometimes roll my eyes when I read about the how many have a love affair with some of their older rods.

While there were some good rods made back-in-the-day I generally find them to be rather "clunky" to cast and fish when compared to many of the newer lightweight graphite models now available.

I began FFing a long time ago when fiberglass rods were your only choice (boo aside), but when graphite rods were introduced I was an early adopter and never looked back.

I find some of the newest graphite rods a leap forward for casting and fishing (c'mon, not all new rods are tomato sticks, there are many great lightweight moderate action rods now being built along with rocket launcher rods if that's what you need.).

I do find boo rods to be beautiful creations, but aesthetics aside, I have no desire to actually go out and fish one, classic or newly built.

BTW, the poll I created asks for rod "preference" and not necessary what you can afford or currently own and fish, in other words the rod type you would like to fish most.

Not all older rods are "clunky" or cast poorly. The Orvis Far n Fine is still regarded as one of the best casting graphite rods of all time for example.

I find the newer and lightweight graphite models to be brittle and weak. Higher modulus graphite with thinner wall diameters have less ability to take stress and are prone to breakage.

To each his own or different strokes for different folks, I don't understand the eye rolls though.

 

[5Weight]

Well my take on this is, every one is different, some like zoom zoom rods others prefer a softer approach. I think younger folks like newer,faster rods, while the older crowd makes shorter more accurate casts to spots that hold fish. If you're talking about sea run browns and bows then stiff,heavy and fast is needed. Too many variables to stick with one rod mfg,or type.

 

[sixfootfenwick]

Reading this again this AM makes me wonder.
Does the OP selling fishing rods?

I can't imagine otherwise why someone would be annoyed that someone else enjoys their old gear enough to talk about it.

The fact is, less important than modulus or material is taper. So many great tapers made throughout the years by many manufactures.
A certain model rod in a series might have one stand out taper in the bunch of lengths and line weights.

It would be a shame not to acknowledge them and share them.

 

[DomR]

The Orvis Far n Fine is still regarded as one of the best casting graphite rods of all time for example.

Couldn't agree more, my 7'9" FnF will go with me to the grave.

 

[Peyton]

I have only fished with graphite rods. One is a 30-year-old ovris that is my favorite, it casts smooth, and can handle big fish. The new 8-weight snapped twice at the same point, both from trying to muscle in small bass under eight inches, if it can't handle that how will it take a large bass or trout? I've casted glass before and wasn't too much of a fan. I prefer slow action so I can chuck larger streamers on a smaller rod, not easy to find a cheap slow action that isn't a broomstick. My buddy uses an old glass rod from the '60s and that casts nothing like the newer glass rods, it's not the best but can't be beaten by a rod under $150. That Orvis goes to any body of water with me, it has handled many bass over 3 pounds and many trout over 20 inches, not bad for a five-weight.

 

[Silent Ocelot]

How do you get a chance to cast all these rods? I guess you have to go to those big fly fishing shows every year and cast different fly rods all day.

I started out with a Fenwick glass rod. I've cast them again in more recent times, and they are OK, but graphite rods cast much better, IMHO.

I won a Sage RPL+ in the 1990s at a TU raffle and liked that rod a lot, but I lost it.

I've cast some rods that were way too stiff at their rated line weights. One was a Loomis, one was an Orvis, and both were high priced. People often overline these rods, but IMHO a rod should cast well with its rated line, or it's just a badly designed rod.

The rod that I liked casting the best was a friend's Loomis Trilogy. It casts with good feel on short casts, and on long casts it's a rocket launcher. It's perfection.

What I'd like to find is a rod with similar action for under $200.

I have traded rods consistently on a monthly basis since the start of 2019 and have just made up my "keeper" quiver so I won't be doing much trading anymore, at least not a the previous rate. Having done this I have tested 40-50 rods in an almost 4 year period so I have refined what I want in a fly rod. A costly endeavor, but necessary to get what I want. In hindsight I wish I would have known what I wanted in a fly rod as it probably would have saved me a few grand.

Your mentioning of rods being too stiff for the rated line is not a fault of the rod within itself, but a failure in communication on the part of the rod designer and line manufacturer. Most fast action rods of today cast one or two line wts above what they are advertised. Whenever I buy a new rod I test it out with the perceived lines I think will work on it. I start at the least weighted line with the least aggressive shooting head and work my way up. Having some prior knowledge of certain companies and their models I can usually get the right line for it right off the bat after a wiggle test. Sometimes it can be hard to diagnose what a rod wants, but the probability of it rejecting the 5-6 test lines I have for it are seldom.

 

[Tigereye]

Why do think that?

Most bamboo rods I have handled would not make the longer casts required on big rivers. Similarly with glass.

I have used them both succesfully on smaller streams where I like the action.

 

[StreamBottom]

I enjoy casting trout rods with a medium action, and I love the idea of functional artwork.

In the last 10-15 years or so I’ve pretty much switched over to fishing bamboo on trout streams. Except for a few of them, all were made by contemporary makers here on the east coast. (Art Weiler in NEPA and a maker in NC who’s turning out great fishing rods and has an ever-expanding group of fans across the country).

I do have an Orvis Battenkill bamboo rod that shares the same birth year of 1968 with me, which I think is pretty cool.

I do still enjoy fishing my graphite Orvis Superfine 7’11”. My wife bought it for me as Bday present in the early nineties. It has very sweet “buttery” action.

 

[StreamBottom]

Most bamboo rods I have handled would not make the longer casts required on big rivers. Similarly with glass.

I have used them both succesfully on smaller streams where I like the action.

Casting distance with bamboo has a lot to do with the taper used to build the rod.
Tournament casting with bamboo was quite a thing BITD.

 

[redietz]

Most bamboo rods I have handled would not make the longer casts required on big rivers. Similarly with glass.

I have used them both succesfully on smaller streams where I like the action.

I don't know what you've fished, but I can almost the whole line with a bamboo rod. (In fact, I did cast the whole line once while fishing one of my Heddon 20's -- which only served to empathize that I wasn't be catching that day if I was fooling around with casting that distance.)

 

[BradFromPotter]

I have traded rods consistently on a monthly basis since the start of 2019 and have just made up my "keeper" quiver so I won't be doing much trading anymore, at least not a the previous rate. Having done this I have tested 40-50 rods in an almost 4 year period so I have refined what I want in a fly rod. A costly endeavor, but necessary to get what I want. In hindsight I wish I would have known what I wanted in a fly rod as it probably would have saved me a few grand.

Your mentioning of rods being too stiff for the rated line is not a fault of the rod within itself, but a failure in communication on the part of the rod designer and line manufacturer. Most fast action rods of today cast one or two line wts above what they are advertised. Whenever I buy a new rod I test it out with the perceived lines I think will work on it. I start at the least weighted line with the least aggressive shooting head and work my way up. Having some prior knowledge of certain companies and their models I can usually get the right line for it right off the bat after a wiggle test. Sometimes it can be hard to diagnose what a rod wants, but the probability of it rejecting the 5-6 test lines I have for it are seldom.

Most fast action rods of today cast one or two line wts above what they are advertised because most people are not good fly casters.

 

[Silent Ocelot]

Not all older rods are "clunky" or cast poorly. The Orvis Far n Fine is still regarded as one of the best casting graphite rods of all time for example.

I find the newer and lightweight graphite models to be brittle and weak. Higher modulus graphite with thinner wall diameters have less ability to take stress and are prone to breakage.

To each his own or different strokes for different folks, I don't understand the eye rolls though.

Higher modulus graphite is more brittle inherently, but not as much as some think. Advancements in materials have allowed for less material to be used while still retaining a high level of durability. Now if we compare fiberglass to graphite, yes, fiberglass is more durable. I will say while fishing a SAGE Method (a high modulus graphite rod) I at one point accidentally used it to stop my kayak (it was laying in the kayak with the trip protruding past the bow). It got caught in some brush and bent below where I would have liked it to. I was waiting for it to crack but it didn't. I pulled the rod out of the brush and it casted fine, dumping out its typical 60+ casts with ease.

I will say that SAGE as a company gets some people saying that they won't fish their rods because they think that the inherent properties of the high modulus graphite used in their rods makes for a rod that due to being too brittle, may break too easily. I am not here to say that is not true but I have owned over 20 SAGE rods and have yet to experience breakage, even on my ONE, which has an extremely thin wall of graphite. YMMV.

Overall I think the added advantage of increased recovery time and lightness in terms of swing weight and overall weight of high modulus graphite rods outweighs their negative attributes of easy breakage, which I have yet to see personally.

 

[AngryViking]

I learned on graphite and I cast fairly decent with them. (Practice would go a long way) However, I have recently gone down the road of vintage glass. I mainly purchase one companies rods ranging from 6'-8'. I felt a huge difference in my casting stroke using those rods but also noticed the accuracy was much better. You have to slow down your stroke and apply power at the right time to make those rods sing. Once you figure that out those rods are great. Some of the older makers also put more into their rods aesthetically. They hand picked some blanks to be high end models while using the other blanks for base models (both are still better than the massed produced stuff today in my opinion). The only graphite rod I grab now is my Euro rod, other than that I'm grabbing vintage glass.

 

[Silent Ocelot]

Most fast action rods of today cast one or two line wts above what they are advertised because most people are not good fly casters.

I think that's a topic of debate. I won't say I am a good caster, fairly average, but I dial in my rods to fit my needs. Most fly rods are supposed to load an AFTMA rated line with 30 feet of line out the tip. If I am fishing a tiny creek I will never fish 30 feet of line out of the tip so I am forced to reduce that length of line but also increase the mass of the line in that specified length of line. Simple math. I am starting to prefer longer bellied lines with a less aggressive head that are closer to the wt of the rod I am using, say one wt over the line rating. Line ratings on fly line boxes are almost pointless too as the grain weight varies so much from company to company and even on some styles of line within the same company. I fish a lot of heavy tandem nymph rigs under a bobber so it would be pointless for me to run true-to-weight line on a rod as I wouldn't be able to move the rig. Try running say a RIO Trout LT on a tandem nymph rig and see how easy it is to cast/manipulate that rig.

 

[sixfootfenwick]

Most fast action rods of today cast one or two line wts above what they are advertised because most people are not good fly casters.

Some well known people in the fly fishing community have demonstrated this by casting fly line without a rod.

 

[sixfootfenwick]

Higher modulus graphite is more brittle inherently, but not as much as some think. Advancements in materials have allowed for less material to be used while still retaining a high level of durability. Now if we compare fiberglass to graphite, yes, fiberglass is more durable. I will say while fishing a SAGE Method (a high modulus graphite rod) I at one point accidentally used it to stop my kayak (it was laying in the kayak with the trip protruding past the bow). It got caught in some brush and bent below where I would have liked it to. I was waiting for it to crack but it didn't. I pulled the rod out of the brush and it casted fine, dumping out its typical 60+ casts with ease.

I will say that SAGE as a company gets some people saying that they won't fish their rods because they think that the inherent properties of the high modulus graphite used in their rods makes for a rod that due to being too brittle, may break too easily. I am not here to say that is not true but I have owned over 20 SAGE rods and have yet to experience breakage, even on my ONE, which has an extremely thin wall of graphite. YMMV.

Overall I think the added advantage of increased recovery time and lightness in terms of swing weight and overall weight of high modulus graphite rods outweighs their negative attributes of easy breakage, which I have yet to see personally.

See that is the thing, the right tool for the job.
Generally speaking of you are casting 60+, a graphite rod would be the best choice. The weight, recovery etc gives you the best chance for success all day.

However not all glass rods are equal in this regard. I could point to JK Fisher as being a very good vintage glass in longer lengths/ line weights that are not overly heavy IMO, cast like a cannon, are moderate in flex with a very good recovery rate. I enjoy them for carp and muskie fishing. They are great big game rods.

If you are fishing mostly tight streams where the tip is likely to strike a branch multiple times an outing and casts are short, go with fiberglass.


Too many choices to limit yourself. I mean why would anyone?

Most places I fish I break graphite. I have on high modulus graphite multiple times, thin walled fly rods are not good around brushy, " rough terrain" streams where falls are eminent.
However my IM6 rods still hold up.

But like I agreed with above, Im not the best at casting or walking for that matter.

 

[tomgamber]

So a pole poll?

 

[sixfootfenwick]

All things considered these types of debates are kind of stupid.

Fish what you enjoy, for the reasons you enjoy or have faith in them.

If we are focused on all considerations looking for the best in all given categories then might I suggest a big game spin rod in IM6?

It will be stronger modulus graphite, high recovery rate, faster casting for more water covered in a day, able to cast faster and hence the ability to catch more fish by sheer volume of completed casts, it will be in a short length, lighter than longer older fly rods, still able to bomb casts but can withstand tree branches on brushy streams, you can still catch brookies with short flip casts, you could horse in big browns and small mouth, it will be cheaper in price than new fly rods.

Not much fun though.
You like fishing the way you enjoy?

 

[afishinado]

Everyone should fish a rod they really like. The thing that makes me shake my head is when a FFer claims their rod is the end-all, be-all of fly-fishing rods. Many of these same anglers saying this have never really fished a rod other than their "Old Betsy".

Whether a rod is works well for any FFer depends on what type of caster they are, where they fish, how they fish, what type of fish they pursue, what technique they employ, the flies they choose and on and on.

I do think all rods get short changed in some way.

I hear FFers scoff at all the new graphite rods saying they are way too stiff and fast and break too easily. Not true.

While others say fiberglass rods are slow like noodle rods and can't cast well for distance. Not true either.

Finally, bamboo rods are so heavy your arm will fall off after a few hours of casting. Not!

The best rod for you depends on you.....

 

[Silent Ocelot]

Everyone should fish a rod they really like. The thing that makes me shake my head is when a FFer claims their rod is the end-all, be-all of fly-fishing rods. Many of these same anglers saying this have never really fished a rod other than their "Old Betsy".

Whether a rod is works well for any FFer depends on what type of caster they are, where they fish, how they fish, what type of fish they pursue, what technique they employ, the flies they choose and on and on.

I do think all rods get short changed in some way.

I hear FFers scoff at all the new graphite rods saying they are way too stiff and fast and break too easily. Not true.

While others say fiberglass rods are slow like noodle rods and can't cast well for distance. Not true either.

Finally, bamboo rods are so heavy your arm will fall off after a few hours of casting. Not!

The best rod for you depends on you.....

Well said afishinado!