Nick Moore | Wednesday, 6 April 2022
Well, I’ve recently moved over to using a stiffer rod for the #5 distance. My usual stick is the Sage Igniter 690-4 which is a very nice, and I fish with it all the time. The Igniter 990-4 was bought for casting the #5, #7 and ST27 events as I wanted something that would give me a bit more distance.
With the #7 and ST27 the rod feels great, but as soon as I put the #5 through it I am quite disappointed, mainly because I have no idea why it’s happening. With the #5 line on the 690-4 I always throw my best, as I use that stick all the time, however when I switch to the 990-4, I’m ALWAYS 1’ short. Why?! I’m going to do a proper back to back with them at some point, but for now I’m going to keep sticking with the 990-4 as I’d like to just use one rod for most of the BFCC events.
I was practicing my carry last weekend, which was tricky with the swirling wind (that’s why you can see me moving around) and I let a few go to see where I roughly was. I was disappointed with my #5 distance at the BFCC, it should have been a lot higher than it was. Certainly mid to high 120’s in that wind, and beyond. I think I’ve figured out why, I did all the heavy stuff and saved the lightest until last, so next time I’m going lightest to heaviest and I’ll see if that helps.
I’ve been practicing accuracy as well, and I am going to take a MED5 and the HT4 (sorry Paul!) as I really like this combination for feel, and the rod doesn’t give me hand cramp, which is quite easy to obtain if the rod is too stiff in this event (I think).
I’ve also swapped all of my leaders to Cortland 9’ 1x on the #5 and #7, and 0x on the ST27. These are really fantastic and match the fly line in terms of mass and stiffness a bit better than the Rio’s, and the taper is really nice. I’m going to do some more practice to dial in the rod a bit more, and use the HT10 as well to see if I throw further with that rod. In the video I threw around 130’, but I threw a lot further than that when the camera wasn’t set up, around 138. Always the way.
The new hat must be contributing to the big distances
Tight lines.