The Real Truth Behind Rod Design

The Real Truth Behind Rod Design

Paul Arden | Monday, 29 April 2019

Stefan and I pulled it out the bag last week, but I'll save that for the short film that I'm making at the moment. Instead I thought I would talk about the real truth behind rod design this week. Firstly you have to understand two things; 1) many rods are "sampled" and not designed. Pretty much anything coming out of Asia is either a copy of something someone else has designed, or else a selection from a sample of widely available blanks - this is probably why many companies are producing rods with very similar actions; they are in fact identical blanks. I know this for a fact because four times in my life, I've been asked to select samples from a range of rods and always well-known rod brands have appeared in the range of samples. 2) Marketing departments work on a 5 year life cycle. Top brands notice that when they first produce a rod they sell lots, and then over the years the numbers slip and so they bring out a newer and "greater" model. However rod technology advancements are not at the pace of computing technology advancements, and most of the surrounding marketing is, how shall I put it? Fiction. In the last 20-30 years the resins have improved, the quality of the fittings available has improved, perhaps the carbon can be laid a little differently - but truthfully rods of 20 years ago are only different to today's rods through design.

There is a great problem occurring in the industry, and that is that rods are becoming stiffer and lines are becoming heavier. It is now very difficult to find a line that sits in the middle of its designated weight class. Often they are one or even two or more line classes too heavy. So the 6WT rod that you bought is being use to cast a line that weighs a 7 or even an 8WT. This of course means that you are fishing a 7 or 8WT outfit, irrespective of what the numbers say on the rod or on the box. As every experienced fly fisherman knows, it is the fly size that should determine the line weight (usually). Times when I would fish a 6 line class would be for fishing weighted nymphs are big trouty flies - NZ Backcountry for example. I would use an 8WT for casting heavily weighted streamers. What I would not do is use an 8WT for fishing backcounty NZ Trout. In fact over the years I have gone lighter with my tackle; in heavily fished waters there is a definite advantage to fishing lighter line weights - it allows for smaller flies to be fished, finer tippets, a more stealthy approach and greater sensitivity. For most of my trout fishing nowadays I use a 4WT (true to line weight) Double Taper line. Of course I can fish that at 90ft if I need to - and so can you by practising the video manual on Sexyloops. And believe me, fishing 90ft of 4WT line is a hell of a lot more sensitive to take indication than 90ft of 6WT. An 8WT doesn't even register. In fact of of the best pieces of advice I can give you as a fly fisherman is to fish lighter more sensitive tackle - learn to cast it, and learn to fight fish properly. But I digress...

Recently I asked RIO about recommended lines for the HT6; ie true to weight lines since that is how it was developed. The HT6 was designed around the MED6 and TCR6 lines. RIO have told me that the Gold is close to weight and that the RIO Grand is exactly one line weight over (so buy a 5WT RIO Grand for this rod if you want to fish RIO line). We do have plans to make a database of line weights on Sexyloops and this would be very useful I think. Here at Sexyloops the Hot Torpedo rods are designed for true to weight lines. You put a heavier line on and you won't get the same feel, the same change of gears in your casting. When dealing with a line that is described as a 1/2WT heavier I recommend fishing 1/2WT lighter. For example with an SA GPX on the HT6 fish the 5WT which weighs a 5 1/2 (I'm told). This makes it "feel" a little bit faster. Of course you may be a "tinkerer" in which case you'll have your own ideas, but that's how I want the rods to feel; as they currently do correctly lined or dropped by a 1/2 line class.

So the question really is, if rod technology hasn't changed much in the past 20 years, why they hell are anglers renewing their rods every few years? I have no idea - marketing? The amount of work that goes into developing a really great all-round rod is immense. It takes me several years at a minimum, and I'm only working on a few at a time. But I do know that the rods I'm making will stand the test of time and I'm pretty sure that they'll be the same blanks I'll be fishing in 20 years from now. I can't imagine how to make a better rod than any of the ones we have so far - 4, 6, 8 and 10. I've been fishing the 6WT HT for 5 years now and it's perfect. In my opinion anyway. Just bringing out another "improved" HT6 with a slightly different action, apart from the fact that it would be inferior, simply so that you would sell your existing HT6 and "upgrade", would be cynical of me. Fortunately we don't have to do that, and instead you can spend your hard-earned money on other things (the other HT rods for example!). So with us you really are buying a rod for life.

And that's how it should be of course. This plastic throwaway society that we live in really is unsustainable. Today's cars fall apart after ten years. My first car was a Land Rover, and that was 20 years old when I bought it! If we as a race could make things that would last and stand the test of time in the past, then I'm sure that we can do an even better job of it now.

On to other things; I have a free week - well I say "free" when what I really mean is a week by myself! I actually have a lot of work to do - flies to tie, a couple of 7'6" rods to test on Mahseer, a video to finish, some leaders to make and of course I need to fish. Piffen is back again next weekend and this time for three weeks. The fishing with Stefan was hard recently. I got to fish hard myself last week and had four days in a row without a fish (chases and a few eats but nothing in the boat until I pulled it out the bag at the last minute). The lake is huge and I've divided it into three vast areas. Two of them were really not producing the sport and in one of them I found the thermocline registering at 50ft FFS. The third was better but not exactly firing.

It was a truly fantastic time fishing with my great friend Stefan Siikavaara; we put the world to right every night with campfires and were on the lake every morning at 7am (first light). When the fishing is tough you can either take it easy or go hard. I prefer to go hard - after all you only live once! I do love this jungle; the stars, the freedom, the remoteness, the extremely challenging fishing, the jungle sounds, the different fish species. Ashly and I should have a houseboat fairly soon. I realise that this sort of challenge is not for everyone; most people just want to catch lots of fish on holiday - and that's great because it means this lake is never going to be too busy. I rarely see another angler and never another fly fisherman. No one, and I mean no one, fishes for the large Gourami on the lake and no fly fisherman fishes seriously for free-rising Snakehead. These are both just so tough. However for those who want a challenge, the learning of new skills and of course time spent learning to cast better, under my tutelage, then you know who to call. I make time to teach two anglers each month and have a separate boat for those wishing to experience the ultimate challenge of making it all happen on their own. And believe me, when you do that you feel like you've really achieved something!

Looking forward to posting the video of Stefan and my fishing last week - and remember to check in every day; we always have a great Front Page for you from all over the world. Have a super week!

Cheers,
Paul

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