Rod length in small creek fishing

Wolfgang wrote:
...
I've fished with many people who were well versed in the fine points of all
the technical aspects of fly fishing. Some of them are very good at it.
But, in no case have I ever had reason to believe their expertise was
grounded in their equipment. ...

Well yeah, but that's not to say that their choice of equipment was
not grounded in their expertise.

--
Ken Fortenberry

"Ken Fortenberry" wrote in message
...
Wolfgang wrote:
...
I've fished with many people who were well versed in the fine points of
all
the technical aspects of fly fishing. Some of them are very good at it.
But, in no case have I ever had reason to believe their expertise was
grounded in their equipment. ...

Well yeah, but that's not to say that their choice of equipment was
not grounded in their expertise.

Well, of course it was......that was the point. Can you imagine Itzhak
picking a fiddle based on someone else's experience.....say, mine, for
example?

Wolfgang
who's got a shiny new nickel says mother perlman never raised such a foolish
child.

Wolfgang More importantly, none of the great masters began by asking
Wolfgang which instrument was best suited to making great music or
Wolfgang even the greatest example of a particular piece of music.
Wolfgang And, it will come as no surprise that the masters make great
Wolfgang music on any adequate instrument.

Agreed (again). If we would have an open small river over here I would
be much better off practicing stalking trout or the bow-and-arrow cast
- regardless of the length of the rod - than sitting in front of the
computer.

However, since we're deep-frozen right now, I still think it's better
to think about these issues and exchange experiences with others
than... not.

--
Jarmo Hurri

Commercial email countermeasures included in header email
address. Remove all garbage from header email address when replying,
or just use .

Craig ... so I built a 4 wt. 7'6" Sage XP series rod last year for
Craig these streams. This rod has rapidly taken its place as my
Craig favorite rod and is used for everything except for big water
Craig and really brushy streams where I still use the 6'6".

Hi Craig,

I think that many people would consider your XP to be, well, not one
of the best choices for such circumstances. It is, after all, a pretty
fast and powerful rod, so one might think that it does not load very
well in short casts or roll casts. However, I have a 9' 4wt XP, and
I've noticed that the tip of the rod is extremely lightweight, and
that the rod is quite responsive with even small amounts of line
outside the tip. Have you noticed anything similar? What kind of a
line do you use with your rod?

BTW, when I bought the XP, I would have wanted to buy a 3wt 4-piece
model. I contacted Sage and asked them whether they would be
introducing such a model in the near future. They explicitly said no,
so I bought the 4wt rod. Next year, Sage added a 4-piece 8'6" 3wt into
the XP series.

--
Jarmo Hurri

Commercial email countermeasures included in header email
address. Remove all garbage from header email address when replying,
or just use .

In article , Jarmo Hurri writes:

Craig ... so I built a 4 wt. 7'6" Sage XP series rod last year for
Craig these streams. This rod has rapidly taken its place as my
Craig favorite rod and is used for everything except for big water
Craig and really brushy streams where I still use the 6'6".

Hi Craig,

I think that many people would consider your XP to be, well, not one
of the best choices for such circumstances. It is, after all, a pretty
fast and powerful rod, so one might think that it does not load very
well in short casts or roll casts. However, I have a 9' 4wt XP, and
I've noticed that the tip of the rod is extremely lightweight, and
that the rod is quite responsive with even small amounts of line
outside the tip. Have you noticed anything similar? What kind of a
line do you use with your rod?

I use a weight forward Airflo line.

I have found the XP to work well for me with small amounts of line
outside the tip and it seems to roll cast pretty well. In general, I
have found I prefer fast rods (I have a 9'6" 7wt XP for really big
water that is just a dream to cast), perhaps because I started with
fast rods. I refurbished my first rod (found it while dad was cleaning
out some old equipment) a few years ago and it turned out to be a
pretty fast fiberglass 7wt (didn't much pay attention to the details of
the rod when I started fly fishing some 40 years ago). The St. Croix
is a medium action rod and it loads better with small amounts of line
and roll casts very well. However, it runs out of gas much beyond
25-30 feet. As far as pure roll casting goes, my favorite rod is my
granddad's bamboo.


---Craig


BTW, when I bought the XP, I would have wanted to buy a 3wt 4-piece
model. I contacted Sage and asked them whether they would be
introducing such a model in the near future. They explicitly said no,
so I bought the 4wt rod. Next year, Sage added a 4-piece 8'6" 3wt into
the XP series.

--
Jarmo Hurri

Commercial email countermeasures included in header email
address. Remove all garbage from header email address when replying,
or just use .



--
__________________________________________________ ______________________
Craig A. Gullixson
Instrument Engineer INTERNET:
National Solar Observatory/Sac. Peak PHONE: (505) 434-7065
Sunspot, NM 88349 USA FAX: (505) 434-7029

I've noticed that the tip of the rod is extremely lightweight, and
that the rod is quite responsive with even small amounts of line
outside the tip.

Greg I've had people at several fly shops say that this was a
Greg conscious part of the design.

Makes sense, and seems to work very well. I didn't know this when I
bought the rod, so it was a very pleasant surprise.

--
Jarmo Hurri

Commercial email countermeasures included in header email
address. Remove all garbage from header email address when replying,
or just use .

Jarmo Hurri wrote in
:

'm not sure if I understood all of your tips, but I will surely find
out soon if a need new furniture or stiches. :-)



If you need new furniture the rod might be a tad on the heavy side!
:-)

Using your head ...wear a hat/cap.

With about a rod length of line plus leader out (total = rod length)

Grab the "fly" between index finger and thumb of line hand,
place said hand behind head resting wrist on back of head with the
fly holding fingers extending above.

.... load the rod by moving the rod arm ... execute bow and arrow.

When you need to hold a cast set for some time this technique can be
useful. I also find casting accuracy is improved as well when I use it.

Hope that made sense...
Good luck with your project,

Steve

"Jarmo Hurri" wrote in message
...

Wolfgang More importantly, none of the great masters began by
asking
Wolfgang which instrument was best suited to making great music or
Wolfgang even the greatest example of a particular piece of music.
Wolfgang And, it will come as no surprise that the masters make
great
Wolfgang music on any adequate instrument.

Agreed (again). If we would have an open small river over here I
would
be much better off practicing stalking trout or the bow-and-arrow
cast
- regardless of the length of the rod - than sitting in front of the
computer.

However, since we're deep-frozen right now, I still think it's
better
to think about these issues and exchange experiences with others
than... not.

Good point.

Good luck.

Wolfgang

Jarmo Hurri wrote in
:

What did surprise me was that a number of people considered weights
0-3 to be too light for this type of fishing.
They said that there is not enough punch in these weights to handle
the large variety of situations you end up in.

Can't comment on that ... 4wt has been my lower limit and the ones I
have
been able to get my hands on are not for me in tight.

Also, some people thought that the lightest
lines do not roll cast very well.

Lines do have varying degrees of roll-castability ... DT better than WF
.... but these differences are usually at the other end, 30+ feet not
problems you'd be looking for at short distances.

These anglers may simply be fishing so short it is not possible to have
enough line out of the tip to load the rod during a roll cast (or
overhead cast for that matter).

Weigh around it ... increase line wt for rod wt. going a size or two
higher.


Steve

In article , Jarmo Hurri
wrote:

The discussion about small-stream rods in a thread above brought to my
mind a closely related question I've been thinking about recently.

I have no first-hand experience on fishing bushy creeks, but a couple
of months ago I heard that there are some really interesting ones
nearby where I live. So I will most certainly be checking out some of
these places later this year. However, since I'm a novice in fishing
places like this, I was wondering what sort of a rod one should use. I
have a 2wt 8' rod myself, and I will naturally find out next summer if
that is of any use in these creeks

Jesus. I see as I post this that ther have been 62 replies|! well
done., Any way, my view FWIW

Everything I've read over the past twenty years in fishing magazines
suggests that you need a very short rod for bushy small streams, but I
don't agree, and I believe it is part of the (perfectly fair) attempt
of the industry to sell us more kit that we don't need.

In very small overgrown streams, my experience is that you may well
want a fairly big fly - the sort of thing that appeals to fish that
feed off caterpillers.

It's likely that you're going to make a very short cast.

Most important of all, your fly is going to be caught up, constantly,
on branches. On this I'm amazed that people have suggested fishing very
low weight rods. Being able to get your fly off a branch without
breaking the leader is /far/ more important than everything else put
together. Reading these posts has been an interesting example
(excessively common, I'm afraid, on ROFF) of who doesn't know what
they're talking about. They're great on who's going to meet up where,
and particularly keen on malt scotch whisky ( a marketing ploy amost as
transparant as the wide variety of similar rods available for
purchase), but a surprising number don't know much about fishing. And
talk about bitter and twisted!

So you want a rod that will respond well to virtually no line - maybe
five feet of line, with a nine foot leader and a bushy fly, maybe size
twelve or fourteen. Not less than eight foot rod, even tucked through
the bushes. Around five weight sounds good.

The key to it all is not all this "short rod"%$£@, but being able to
handle that fly on the end of a very short line. In fact, you need
something quite robust for that. You also need something quite robust
to tug when your fly is caught up on a branch and still get it off.

m Htp

Lazarus

--
Remover the rock from the email address