What Is The Perfect Rod For Trout Fishing? And Why Is It a 6 Weight.
In the past article I talked about the one thing that you could do to improve your fly fishing success. That one thing was learning and practicing a proper cast. While a cast is important to getting it to the target, there is a lot more that needs to be done after the fly arrives. Industry marketing and fly rod technology for as long as Ive been involved in the sport has been about speed, speed, and more speed. Fast action rods and light lines have dominated the fly fishing zeitgeist, and the quiver of most anglers. It’s gotten so bad that now line manufactures are building lines that are a 1/2 weight or entire weight heavier than what is marked on the package, and concentrating tapers to the front ends; in order to load these overly stiff rods. Recently these little light zippy poles have grown longer to accommodate “comp fishing” and “euro nymphing.” I won’t get into those subjects here except to say if you’re fly fishing for numbers and production, youre in it for the wrong reason, you will burn out on it soon, or this is just one of the phases we go through in fishing; and you’ll soon loose your love for catching as many as possible in a given amount of time.
First let’s revisit the past article MxA=F, where M is mass, A is acceleration, and F is force. I talked about how you don’t add acceleration in to a fly cast like you do with a conventional rod, but rather use the increasing mass in the increasing amount of line to generate more force to cast further. This is a bit of a mis-truth as you can add acceleration to a fly cast, but again that is more advanced than I intend to cover here.
The tendency to want a “fast” action rod for fly casting makes sense if you are new to the sport and do not yet understand how the rod works. Even if it has been explained to you, your arm does not understand, and so will prefer a more familiar feel. And if you are hucking weighted nymphs and bobbers, or three to five bead heads on mono line, then a stiff rod makes sense. Why? Well…because you are not casting a fly rod.
Casting a fly rod requires and demands little effort. Your only job is to begin moving the mass of the line, and trust that the momentum will transfer down the taper, to your fly, turn everything over and carry toward the target. If you are making an effort your are not fly casting. You may be fly fishing, but you are not fly casting.
Put simply: Your 10 foot 3 weight is probably not going to perform well at casting a fly line, especially if its a little windy. It is the mass that makes a fly rod work, not the speed, and it is this mass that we rely on to correct drifts by “mending” with out disturbing our fly. Mending happens both in the air and on the water. A mend in the air is technically a specialty cast and a topic for another time. A mend on the water can, and should, be performed by even a novice fly angler.
Too often I watch friends, family, random anglers, and customers struggle with mending much to the detriment of their fishing success. The task seems so complicated for some that they simply forego the unnecessary garbage, and revert to making short casts and dragging bugs through the water column. While this kind of fishing has its place depending on where you are standing in the pool; its not what a fly rod and line were designed for. Which is why you rarely see any fly line out the end of the rod when this style is being performed. The other route is to simply pursue fish that do not require a drag free drift, and just let it swing around willy nilly until some aggressive stocked trout attacks that wooly bugger with the rubber legs.
A proper mend is performed in two steps. The first move is UP to lift some of the belly of the line off the water and break the waters tendency to adhere to the line. The second move is to use the flex point in the rod to KICK the line up or down stream, with out moving your fly, to correct its drift and get the line AND the leader upstream of the fly (or indicator). Being performed with the flex point of the rod; a stiff, tip flex rod is very difficult to manage a delicate move with. With the stiffer rods mends tend to either be wild and aggressive, moving the fly around on the surface; or worse, the entire rod is used to make the mend, thus taking the rod out the strike position by placing it upstream of the downstream drifting flies. If you get a take at this moment, you will react incorrectly and set upstream. If you constantly set upstream even though you know better, this is probably what is happening. You have failed to track your drift downstream, or you have mended with the entirety of the rod, and now placed your striking utensil out of position for the necessary action.
Now we return to the heavier rod. When performing the mend we are really just making a cast with out removing the fly from the water. The less effort we use to do this, the more likely we will be able to pull it off with out disturbing the fly. A heavier line moves, carries its momentum, and fights the tendency of water to adhere to and hold your fly line; much better than a lighter line. You are able to generate the proper amount of force with out having to “force it.”
In conclusion: A slow to moderate (both relative terms, I know) six weight rod will serve you much better than that sports car of a three weight the kid at the fly shop is trying to sell you. Fly fishing is an old sport. Most of the innovation was done years ago, lost to history and marketing hype, and then relearned again. It may also be remarketed again (see Fly Agra for an example). True innovations in our sport happen rarely, and when they do they are marked by the test of time and usually do not require any industry hype to sell (bead head nymphs for example).
If you are new to the sport I implore you to cast a rod before buying it. If you are having to try to cast it, then don’t buy it. Trying to cast it means that either the rod is too fast, or you need to spend that money on a few casting lessons before purchasing a rod. Ask the guy selling the rod to cast it. If he zips out beautiful, effortless, tight loops; then ask him what he charges for casting lessons. If he looks like he’s killing his arm to impress you, go elsewhere. A cast should be almost effortless, anything else and someone in the design department dropped the ball, and asked the marketing department to pick up the slack.
If you are an old hand at the sport then go dig in your closet. Somewhere in there is an old IM6 or fiberglass six weight that has been waiting on you to return to it. If its not in there I probably bought it when you listed it on Ebay.
“BUT WHAT ABOUT PRESENTATION?” you say. “Wont that heavy line crash down on the fish and make a splashy presentation?” It’s possible. Especially if you have picked the wrong line or leader. Presentation happens at the end of the line, and is modified by chopping up that brand new fly line, or that perfectly extruded new coiled up leader fresh from the packet.
Thats a discussion for next time.
Keep your tip up!
Heath