12-12-2009, 06:31 AM
[quote mojorizing]
The more you remove from the butt section of a fly rod, the faster the action will be. You can take your 3 pc. fly rod, put a reel seat, grip and install new guides on the mid and tip section and what do you have? A piece of crap to fish with. It wasn't designed that way. It was designed as a 3 pc. Have you ever wondered why hardly anyone builds a fly rod shorter than 6'? Graphite just doesn't cut it. It's too stiff. You will find some short rods in glass, but not plastic.[/quote]
This isn't true. Fast action can be generalized as a rod that flexes mostly in the very tip (though of course it will flex a little for the rest of the way). On a fly rod let's call this the last 2 feet of 9. A slow action rod flexes nearly all the way to the butt section, say the top 6 of 9 feet. If you cut both of these rods in half, the ACTION of what you have left is flex in 2 of 4-1/2 feet (perfectly suited for a nice UL spinning rod) or ALL of 4-1/2 feet (which might not be able to generate the tip speed for a spinning rod while casting light lures though would protect light lines very well). These new sections of rod defined as the new full length are now medium/slow and nooooodle/slow. Of course you can't fly cast worth a whit because you can't "draw the straight line" with the tip anymore FOR FLY FISHING. So in fact as you cut more off the butt of any rod, the SLOWER the action will become.
Oh, and I want to clarify that action doesn't have anything to do with stiffness. You can have a slow action but very stiff sturgeon rod (which flexes deep into the length, though with more load than a trout can impart) and a super-fast action UL spin which, though not very stiff, will flex mostly in the tip section until fully loaded and stressed.
A blank with a proper taper most certainly could be designed at 6 feet or less for fly fishing, but the masses would probably not chose to go this route simply because it's easier to fish most situations with an 8 to 9 foot rod, not because the manufacturing techniques aren't available. You can make graphite (which isn't plastic BTW) as stiff or as limber as you want by tweaking cross section, wall thickness, layup orientation, and material selection.
As for my discussion with Pon regarding taking a fly blank and hacking it, I never claimed I could make a well balanced fly rod out of this. We're talking SPINNING rod. Also, recall we're comparing what I thought might be a good solution for his request vs. the spring pole contraption.
_SHig
[signature]
The more you remove from the butt section of a fly rod, the faster the action will be. You can take your 3 pc. fly rod, put a reel seat, grip and install new guides on the mid and tip section and what do you have? A piece of crap to fish with. It wasn't designed that way. It was designed as a 3 pc. Have you ever wondered why hardly anyone builds a fly rod shorter than 6'? Graphite just doesn't cut it. It's too stiff. You will find some short rods in glass, but not plastic.[/quote]
This isn't true. Fast action can be generalized as a rod that flexes mostly in the very tip (though of course it will flex a little for the rest of the way). On a fly rod let's call this the last 2 feet of 9. A slow action rod flexes nearly all the way to the butt section, say the top 6 of 9 feet. If you cut both of these rods in half, the ACTION of what you have left is flex in 2 of 4-1/2 feet (perfectly suited for a nice UL spinning rod) or ALL of 4-1/2 feet (which might not be able to generate the tip speed for a spinning rod while casting light lures though would protect light lines very well). These new sections of rod defined as the new full length are now medium/slow and nooooodle/slow. Of course you can't fly cast worth a whit because you can't "draw the straight line" with the tip anymore FOR FLY FISHING. So in fact as you cut more off the butt of any rod, the SLOWER the action will become.
Oh, and I want to clarify that action doesn't have anything to do with stiffness. You can have a slow action but very stiff sturgeon rod (which flexes deep into the length, though with more load than a trout can impart) and a super-fast action UL spin which, though not very stiff, will flex mostly in the tip section until fully loaded and stressed.
A blank with a proper taper most certainly could be designed at 6 feet or less for fly fishing, but the masses would probably not chose to go this route simply because it's easier to fish most situations with an 8 to 9 foot rod, not because the manufacturing techniques aren't available. You can make graphite (which isn't plastic BTW) as stiff or as limber as you want by tweaking cross section, wall thickness, layup orientation, and material selection.
As for my discussion with Pon regarding taking a fly blank and hacking it, I never claimed I could make a well balanced fly rod out of this. We're talking SPINNING rod. Also, recall we're comparing what I thought might be a good solution for his request vs. the spring pole contraption.
_SHig
[signature]