Is there any advantage in a spey rod?

Peter Charles wrote:

Basically, long-line casting technique with DTs or long belly WF lines
depends on a big D-Loop. A moderate, through action rod casts them
very well. Now strap on a shooting head or a short belly WF line and
try it. It'll cast, but not with the same proficiency. Try it again
with what Sage calls their Euro rods (fast, tip-to-middle action) and
watch them fly.

Peter, would you say Sage's 9141-4 "European" is a longer casting rod
than the 9140-4 "Traditional"? Would the latter be a better (i.e., more
forgiving) rod for a novice?

JR

On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 13:48:44 +0100, JR wrote:

Peter Charles wrote:

Basically, long-line casting technique with DTs or long belly WF lines
depends on a big D-Loop. A moderate, through action rod casts them
very well. Now strap on a shooting head or a short belly WF line and
try it. It'll cast, but not with the same proficiency. Try it again
with what Sage calls their Euro rods (fast, tip-to-middle action) and
watch them fly.

Peter, would you say Sage's 9141-4 "European" is a longer casting rod
than the 9140-4 "Traditional"? Would the latter be a better (i.e., more
forgiving) rod for a novice?

JR


I've only cast the 9141 -- knowing the 9140 "brownie" by reputation
only. The 9141 will enable the novice to cast further than a 9140 but
both rods, in the hands of a proficient caster, would cast about the
same distance.

"Good for the novice" is a tough call as it depends on a number of
factors. Slow rods, such as the Sage brownie, require a finesse touch
to cast well. Very little power needs to be applied by the caster to
cast these rods well so the novice tends to overpower them. The
faster rods tend to tolerate this a bit better. IMHO, a good "novice"
rod would be one that provides a lot of feedback to the caster -- the
caster should be able to feel the load quite easily.

That said, I wouldn't buy either rod. Out of the six testers, five
thought the Scott SAS 1409 to be a fantastic rod (the one exception
tended to prefer slower rods) and all consider it better than the
9141. It's a fast rod, like the 9141, but unlike the 9141, it casts
very lightly. It's a very powerful rod yet it's tractable over a
fairly broad range of casting conditions and it wasn't too fussy about
what line we used as it casted both regular and long Delta Airflo
9/10s quite well. The Scott SAS 1409 would be my top recommendation
to anyone starting off with a 14' 9 wt.



Peter

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