What's everyone's favorite 4 wt?

[discomidge]

I've only got 2 but like them both a lot for different reasons

Douglas Sky-G 9' - my #1 for BFC/Spring Creek and calmer days on bigger water. It might be my one rod to rule them all.

Orvis Superfine Glass 7'6" - my main brookie rod but also super groovy on bigger streams for dry fly stuff.

 

[StreamBottom]

No bamboo??
My current favorite is hot off the planing form. My wife had a maker/friend from NC make it for me as a wedding anniversary gift.

An 8' 4wt based on the Leonard "Letort" taper. Perfect rod for casting drys, smallish nymphs and/or midge patterns on Cumberland Valley limestoners and spring creeks.

One of the best parts, besides casting it is that it cost a 100 bucks less than the high end Orvis and Sage rods, and has two tips.

The maker sent me pics of the rod's progress.

the culm

flamed

split

rough planed and ready for heat treatment

cooked

finish planing

 

[dryflyguy]

Streambottom:

Those rods look so beautiful, I'd be somewhat afraid to fish with them!

 

[StreamBottom]

They're a lot more durable than you think, no more fragile than glass or graphite IMO.

And if you do break it, you have a second tip and you can have the broken tip scarfed back together.

 

[Bamboozle]

StreamBottom wrote:
No bamboo??
My current favorite is hot off the planing form. My wife had a maker/friend from NC make it for me as a wedding anniversary gift.

An 8' 4wt based on the Leonard "Letort" taper. Perfect rod for casting drys, smallish nymphs and/or midge patterns on Cumberland Valley limestoners and spring creeks.

One of the best parts, besides casting it is that it cost a 100 bucks less than the high end Orvis and Sage rods, and has two tips.

I own a real Leonard 40L which is the 8'0" 4wt two piece rod your version is based on although "based" may be the operative word.

The L or Letort Series have the finest tips I ever laid eyes on other than a Catskill Fairy and the rods are slow, no if and or butts about it. If you ever fished an Orvis Seven Three bamboo you will sort of get the idea.

It is a great dry fly rod for moderate distances in open water, but nymphing isn't something I do with it because it doesn't lift line off the water well if you try and fish subsurface and horsing a fish out of a log jam on its namesake stream would result in disaster.

They also can take a set easily because of how fine the tips are and IF you break one, you are most likely looking at a new tip or a shortened tip, not a repair because they are that fine near the tip top.

I have a feeling your rod will be based in name only but considerably different (just the flaming will make it faster) because the L Series rods were never very popular because of how delicate & specialized they were.

That's why it didn't make MY favorite 4wt list.

Enjoy YOUR rod, it looks beautiful!!

 

[StreamBottom]

I definitely agree with you. I’ve read that the Letort taper was slow, but this rod is more medium.

The maker has also hollowed the butt section, which makes it more brisk. Which we agreed upon when we had our initial talks about what kind of 4wt I was looking and where I intended to fish.

I didn’t have any problem stretching out long casts on the Breeches.

It’s definitely a sweet casting rod.

 

[Bamboozle]

Glad to hear you are enjoying it!!

I love my 40L but it's not for everything as we already discussed.

Who is the builder?

 

[dano]

StreamBottom wrote:
No bamboo??

If you look 2 post up from yours, you'll see this.
It's not just a small stream rod.
It fishes surprisingly well up to 60ft.
It's a fun rod to fish.
Casts a little more off the tip than the original Paul Young taper.

 

[StreamBottom]

Bamboozle wrote:


Who is the builder?

PM sent

 

[StreamBottom]

Dano,

Nice looking rod! I haven’t heard of Beasley, always nice to find about another maker. Does he specialize in Young tapers?

 

[Tack-L-Tyer]

If you like Young tapers here’s a source of offerings down through the years. https://www.phydatabase.com/ Good luck…

 

[fly_doggie]

My Winston TMF is my fave followed by an Sage 4711 LL. They only get fished with dries. I go to 5 wt if I go sub-surface.

 

[poopdeck]

Reddington classic trout. It’s the only 4 wt I own. Since I’ve never felt a need to “upgrade” it must be the best one out there. For me anyway.

 

[dano]

StreamBottom wrote:
Dano,

Nice looking rod! I haven’t heard of Beasley, always nice to find about another maker. Does he specialize in Young tapers?

Sadly, Jim passed last year at the age of 81.
His most famous rods to come off the bench was his rendition of the PHY Perfectionist, IMO, A dead on smooth as butter 4wt.
He had a pretty devoted following of PHY fans which included some of today's most renowned builders.
Rarely do you see his rods on the second hand market.

Nice article:
Trout Underground

More stuff:
Classic Fly Rod Forum

 

[GANGGREEN]

I can't afford the really expensive stuff (I probably couldn't, but I couldn't justify it), but my favorite 4 weight has been a Diamondback VSR 7'10" model. It was especially nice for dries, but I did everything with it. It can't be fixed/replaced, so I'm also in the market for a good 4 weight and I'm leaning towards the Orvis Clearwater, partly because they have a lot of models, because the price is reasonable, because I THINK I can get a discount on one and because they typically have a decent warranty, even on their rods that are less than $1000.