what WF3 line should I buy?

Jarmo Hurri wrote:

JR One of the best examples of how the industry is f***ing up the
JR sport in order to sell more stuff is the line manufacturers'
JR screwing with line weights (i.e., producing lines whose first 30
JR ft is not standard).

I'm curious: which manufacturers/lines no longer adhere to the
standards?

The one I know of is Scientific Anglers GPX (a 4wt line is in reality
something like 4.5wt).

Good question. The GPX is the line most folks know deviates from the
standard, because SA has been pretty up front about it (sorry, couldn't
resist g).

A lot of new lines are being put on the market with remarks from the
makers about the front part of the line being somehow different from the
"norm", but with no actual specs on the weight. Consider this from
Cortland:

http://www.cortlandline.com/technical/444_specs.html

Note that the specs for all the old 444 lines have info on the actual
AFTMA line weight (±140 grams for the first 30 ft of a 5wt, for
example). For the "NEW" lines, though, i.e., the 444 Tropic Plus Lazer
Redfish and the 444 Classic Sylk (sic, God help us), there is only info
on the tapers, nothing about weight. The same seems to be true for Sage
and SA; you won't find much about the actual weight of their lines.

My own view is that after having hoodwinked a large portion of those new
to the sport into believing that as you become a "better" caster, you
will (and should) inevitably want to cast farther and you will (and
should) therefore want to "progress" to faster, usually more expensive,
rods in order to do so. Problem is most fast rods are so stiff they
don't load properly with less than a whole lot of line out. So the
chumps, er, customers end up with rods they can't cast worth a damn at
the distances 90% of us fish 90% of the time. Hence the need for
six-weight lines labeled as fives, fours labeled as threes, etc.

I've heard (and read on the web) rumors that some of the new "delicate
presentation" lines are lighter than the AFTMA norm, but I can't now
remember which ones. That would be particularly odd if true since they
would cast particularly poorly at close range. In any event, once the
line weight standard goes out the window, a line is only a five-weight
because the manufacturer says it is, and matching a "5wt" line with a
"5wt" rod becomes a crap shoot, an exercise in trial and error, which is
of course not a bad thing for the line companies.

JR

JR wrote:



One of the best examples of how the industry is f***ing up the sport in
order to sell more stuff is the line manufacturers' screwing with line
weights (i.e., producing lines whose first 30 ft is not standard). A
very good summary was put together by Chuck Stranahan (Caddis Variant)
in his posts on this thread on the VFS forum:


My chief gripe about lines too.

Willi

JR A lot of new lines are being put on the market with remarks from
JR the makers about the front part of the line being somehow
JR different from the "norm", but with no actual specs on the weight.
JR Consider this from Cortland:

JR http://www.cortlandline.com/technical/444_specs.html

JR Note that the specs for all the old 444 lines have info on the
JR actual AFTMA line weight (±140 grams for the first 30 ft of a 5wt,
JR for example). For the "NEW" lines, though, i.e., the 444 Tropic
JR Plus Lazer Redfish and the 444 Classic Sylk (sic, God help us),
JR there is only info on the tapers, nothing about weight. The same
JR seems to be true for Sage and SA; you won't find much about the
JR actual weight of their lines.

Good point. What we will soon need is some fanatic who will actually
weigh new lines and publish the results on a web page for
comparison. Pretty much insane - we already had the standard.

I think that my next new line will be one of the old 444's - just to
support lines with known ratings...

--
Jarmo Hurri

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address. Remove all garbage from header email address when replying,
or just use .

In article ,
Jarmo Hurri wrote:

JR A lot of new lines are being put on the market with remarks from
JR the makers about the front part of the line being somehow
JR different from the "norm", but with no actual specs on the weight.
JR Consider this from Cortland:

JR http://www.cortlandline.com/technical/444_specs.html

JR Note that the specs for all the old 444 lines have info on the
JR actual AFTMA line weight (±140 grams for the first 30 ft of a 5wt,
JR for example). For the "NEW" lines, though, i.e., the 444 Tropic
JR Plus Lazer Redfish and the 444 Classic Sylk (sic, God help us),
JR there is only info on the tapers, nothing about weight. The same
JR seems to be true for Sage and SA; you won't find much about the
JR actual weight of their lines.

Good point. What we will soon need is some fanatic who will actually
weigh new lines and publish the results on a web page for
comparison. Pretty much insane - we already had the standard.

I think that my next new line will be one of the old 444's - just to
support lines with known ratings...



My local fly fishing dealer (I live in Europe) says the Gary
LaFontaine's Delicate Presentation Line is the best invention since
sliced bread. Cortland 444 is old news.

Do you happen to know this line?

On Mon, 07 Jun 2004 19:47:02 +0300, Jarmo Hurri
wrote:




Good point. What we will soon need is some fanatic who will actually
weigh new lines and publish the results on a web page for
comparison. Pretty much insane - we already had the standard.

I think that my next new line will be one of the old 444's - just to
support lines with known ratings...


No sympathy from this corner -- if you think regular lines are screwed
up, you should try spey lines.

One popular West Coast light spey rod casts both a Rio Windcutter 5/6
and a Hardy Mach 1 8/9 lines with equal ease as both lines weight
about the same!!!

It's chaos . . .

Peter

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Peter Charles wrote:

On Mon, 07 Jun 2004 19:47:02 +0300, Jarmo Hurri
wrote:



Good point. What we will soon need is some fanatic who will actually
weigh new lines and publish the results on a web page for
comparison. Pretty much insane - we already had the standard.

I think that my next new line will be one of the old 444's - just to
support lines with known ratings...



No sympathy from this corner -- if you think regular lines are screwed
up, you should try spey lines.

One popular West Coast light spey rod casts both a Rio Windcutter 5/6
and a Hardy Mach 1 8/9 lines with equal ease as both lines weight
about the same!!!

It's chaos . . .

That sucks! When the line makers abandon the standard, you have to buy
or try out a bunch of lines to find what's going to work for you. I'm
going to buy those lines that still rate their lines by the standard.
Hope at least some still stay that way.

Willi

On Mon, 07 Jun 2004 17:28:23 -0600, Willi wrote:



Peter Charles wrote:

On Mon, 07 Jun 2004 19:47:02 +0300, Jarmo Hurri
wrote:



Good point. What we will soon need is some fanatic who will actually
weigh new lines and publish the results on a web page for
comparison. Pretty much insane - we already had the standard.

I think that my next new line will be one of the old 444's - just to
support lines with known ratings...



No sympathy from this corner -- if you think regular lines are screwed
up, you should try spey lines.

One popular West Coast light spey rod casts both a Rio Windcutter 5/6
and a Hardy Mach 1 8/9 lines with equal ease as both lines weight
about the same!!!

It's chaos . . .

That sucks! When the line makers abandon the standard, you have to buy
or try out a bunch of lines to find what's going to work for you. I'm
going to buy those lines that still rate their lines by the standard.
Hope at least some still stay that way.

Willi


With spey lines, there never has been a standard -- they're working on
it now.

I've produced some charts to help this along. Since not all of line
behind the rod is used to load it in a spey cast, that portion of the
line used in the load, I've called "casting weight". I've suggested
to the line makers that lines be rated according to their casting
weight, based on an arbitrary standardized D-Loop. It's had a
reasonable reception from SA so we'll see where we go from here.

In case you're interested. It's dry stuff but it would useful for
anyone interestied in spey casting. Incidentally, spey casts can be
done with any spey rod.

http://www.mountaincable.net/~pcharl...tingweight.xls
http://www.mountaincable.net/~pcharl...texplained.pdf
http://www.mountaincable.net/~pcharl...eightmodel.pdf
http://www.mountaincable.net/~pcharl...weightuses.pdf
http://www.mountaincable.net/~pcharl...htvariance.xls

Peter

On Mon, 07 Jun 2004 20:08:54 -0400, Peter Charles
wrote:


In case you're interested. It's dry stuff but it would useful for
anyone interestied in spey casting. Incidentally, spey casts can be
done with any spey rod.


That was supposed to be "any fly rod".

duh!!

Peter

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Visit The Streamer Page at http://www.mountaincable.net/~pcharl...ers/index.html

William H.M. Wood wrote:

My local fly fishing dealer (I live in Europe) says the Gary
LaFontaine's Delicate Presentation Line is the best invention since
sliced bread. Cortland 444 is old news.

Do you happen to know this line?

I'm not familiar with that line, but your local fly fishing dealer
sounds like a fine salesman. :-)

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

"Willi" wrote in message
...


Peter Charles wrote:

On Mon, 07 Jun 2004 19:47:02 +0300, Jarmo Hurri
wrote:



Good point. What we will soon need is some fanatic who will actually
weigh new lines and publish the results on a web page for
comparison. Pretty much insane - we already had the standard.

I think that my next new line will be one of the old 444's - just to
support lines with known ratings...



No sympathy from this corner -- if you think regular lines are screwed
up, you should try spey lines.

One popular West Coast light spey rod casts both a Rio Windcutter 5/6
and a Hardy Mach 1 8/9 lines with equal ease as both lines weight
about the same!!!

It's chaos . . .

That sucks! When the line makers abandon the standard, you have to buy
or try out a bunch of lines to find what's going to work for you. I'm
going to buy those lines that still rate their lines by the standard.
Hope at least some still stay that way.

Um......I don't suppose it has occurred to anyone that line standards don't
mean **** if they aren't matched to stringent rod standards? Anybody here
ever tried to cast identical rods matched with identical reels and identical
lines side by side? And, I don't suppose it has ever occurred to anyone
that line standards based on gross weight of the first thirty feet......or
whatever.....don't mean **** unless the weight is distributed EXACTLY the
same in ALL of those lines?

Here's a little experiment you can do at home:

Take two identical rods, two identical reels, and two identical lines.
Spool up the lines and attach the reels to the rods. Thread the lines
through the guides. Now, attach a small weight......say, a tiny split
shot.....to the end of one of the lines. Take an identical weight and
attach it to the other line, about fifteen feet from the end. Remember now,
the lines are identical. Thus, by attaching the two identical weights you
have in NO way changed the difference in weight between the first thirty
feet of the two lines......they are STILL identical.

O.k., now go outside and cast both rods with an identical length of line out
above the tip top. Try a whole bunch of different lengths. Here's what's
going to happen.....no matter what length of line you have out on the two
rods (assuming it is the same for both), they will NEVER cast the same.

So far, so good.

Now, get 37 five weight rods.....all of them different makes and/or models
from one another. Cast all of them with the same reel and line......pick
whatever weight line is handy.....it doesn't make a damned bit of
difference. O.k. Done? Surprised? Why? You shouldn't be.

Sophistry, it would appear, still isn't an exact science.

Wolfgang