Rickard Gustafsson | Saturday, 15 November 2025
I think quite a lot about fly casting. And I don’t think I’m alone in doing that. Looking at the bickering on the board I can tell that there are at least one or two more that find it quite amusing to think about our narrow field. In today’s instalment I’m going to write about one topic that it is very hard to come to any conclusions about. How to rate a rod. The reason I’ve been thinking about this is a video I recently stumbled upon:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IuPsAizpiM
I think most of us agree with Peter Morse here. And that trying to rate a rod for a line is a bit ass backwards and that line manufacturers is playing a big part in this. There are some people claiming that AFFTA is broken. Really? If we keep it simple and let it be what it is, a number that quickly tells us what a line has for length to weight ratio. Well if you put a number on the box that isn’t following the AFFTA specs then you are not helping anyone. Things could be a lot simpler if the AFFTA number was true and that the question for every fishermen was “I want to cast this fly, in this situation, what line should I get?”. Not “I have this rod with an imaginary number above the handle, what line should I get to make this rod work for me?”. People love to match the number above the handle with the number written on the fly line box for some reason and I have an idea how to make this better.
So how do we make this better? Remove the number above the handle on the fly rod! And instead describe the rod what the idea behind the rod is. Sounds familiar? That’s how Paul does it, but just tripping right before the goal and writing a number above the handle. Each rod has a description of the design ideas behind the rod. What situations it is intended to solve. Of all of his rods that I’ve casted I find the description to be perfect. The HT7 is perfect for imaginary seatrout fishing, long casts in a lots of wind or for launching streamers in a stream. The HT6 is a perfect all round trout rod. The HT4 is a magic trout stick, just lovely casting rod. It is hard to put down when you have started. If we could get the idea behind the rod instead of a number above the handle people would be doing more reasonable purchases. And we wouldn’t end up with all the randomness of one #5 rod is perfect for inclose, while another is perfect for bombing long casts. People need help here as people love numbers and symmetry, which describes why we have all these overweighted lines, a #5 line that is one class heavy is just a #6.
It might be a bit long to write the whole description on the blank, but instead each rod could have a unique name. Just not a number that is expected to match the line box.
I’m not immune to symmetry myself, my HT10says 5 above the handle as I use it to cast a #5 line. So I could maybe also need some help.
Cheers, Rickard
PoD: This is not how we should pick fly rods and lines.