bob bolton
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From an engineering perspective, it would be impossible for a ferruled section to have the same characteristics as a continuous section. It would have to be heavier, probably stiffer, and would be a nest of stress concentrations. That being said, it must be damn small because I have never been able to measure the difference or tell the difference in casting. And 4 piece rods are damn convenient.
Godspeed and good fishing,
Bob
And Bill, I do have to call your dad and see how he is doing. For those of you who don’t know, Bill’s dad is a master skeet and trap shooter, a tournament bridge player, and one of the finest gentlemen I have ever known.
Shane,
Very complex subject which Zach explained very well. If you want to dig deeper or have trouble sleeping at night you might want to google Common Cents which is Dr. Bill Hanneman’s approach or look at the rod index on Sexyloops.com seen here http://www.sexyloops.com/eric/database/rodtablesorted.php
or read my stuff on http://www.hatofmichigan.org/e-book.html under the Mechanics of fly casting.Also a book by Don Phillips called The Technology of Fly Rods is excellent. I am not really big on rod flex indexes or on rod frequency but they have their place and it is something most people can understand. But beware, the experts are not even there yet and the only way to really tell to to cast a few. And Zach is definately right, stay away from fast, stiff rods until you are a good caster and are reaching out long or casting big stuff on the salt.
Godspeed,
Bob
GMC Yukon for me. I got hit head on by a drunk in a Dodge Durango before I got it and I will not loose that battle again. Going on 6 years w/o a problem (KOW). AWD, stab control, side air bags, 18mpg highway, towing package, and every thing is locked up tight and dry inside. All for $30,000 new. Dog loves it on hunting trips too. And it helps keep America, American. I just love it.
Bob
If you are going way south contact these guys for suggestions.
http://www.marco-island-florida.com/flyrod/home.htm
or
http://www.florida-southwest.com/fish/flyhome.htm
or
Captain Tom Shadley at http://www.mangroveoutfitters.com/
or the orvis shop in Naples
or just walk the beach at just after high tide south of 32nd street in Port Royal and sight cast snook.
Bob
Bob
I admire you guys that can shoot 12 gages. I have 3 twelves and a 20 in my gun case gathering dust. Got hit head on by a drunk driver a few years back and had a few plates and screws added to my neck. Can’t take the recoil anymore. Had to quit skeet shooting but I still hunt. I use a S X S 28 gage for grouse and woodcock and I just love it. Points instinctively and my percentage has gone way up. Of course I couldn’t hit grouse worth a darn before so any improvement is a big plus.
Bob
Mike,
55 lb is only about half a horsepower. Hope you don’t plan on going too far or too fast. Pick up a used (in good shape) 2 1/2 horse Merc 2 cycle long shaft or lower your transom mount for a standard shaft (lift mounts are available to bolt on). The 2 cycles had integral fuel tanks and are very light (compared to the 4 cycle). However, they are not made anymore.
Bob
For those who read my last post, I have some updates. I had some discussions with the experts and there are inaccuracies in the article I wrote some time back. I was somewhat negative to the differences between dry fly tapers being noticeable by the average caster. At that time, there were not as many variations in taper and those variations were not large. Since then, some manufacturers have introduced new specialty tapers and, in all likelihood, have added changes which are quite noticeable. I plan on rewriting that article but I plan on waiting until Zach has worked his magic on the subject. I am looking forward to it.
Godspeed and good fishing,
Bob
Zach,
I don’t pretend to know anything near as much about fly line as does Bruce. I wrote this some time back before I really got interested in the subject. It is an attempt in my words of explaining what taper does. I still maintain that the average caster would have trouble in differentiating between different dry fly tapers. More extreme taper variations for throwing big heavy bugs or sink tips are probably noticable though. I don’t know much about them.
Try this. It is just a novice approach at the subject.
http://www.hatofmichigan.org/uploads/Mechanics_of_Fly_Casting_2.pdf
Bob
A fly rod factory rating is nothing more than a professional’s opinion of what line you should use to get a comfortable feel with 30 feet of line out. I usually upline all my fast rods because I like the way they feel that way and because I don’t usually cast over 40 feet – mostly 20-25 feet. On salt for longer casts, I usually don’t upline.
It’s all in the engineering mechanics. Simple math. Want to read about it and maybe fall right off to sleep, read the mechanics articles on
http://www.hatofmichigan.org/e-book.htmlAnd all this tip flex crap – is just that.
Line them however you like – there is no right size. It’s whatever feels good on your rod at your distance to you.
There’s my $.02.
And Spence is right, it’s not worth the effort to discuss it further.
Godspeed,
Bob
My 4 wt. is an Orvis but I have heard very good things about TFO rods for moderately priced equipment.
Bob
Found it
Is that the ferrule we are looking at – in the center pic on the right? Really different looking for what I am used to.
Bob
Off subject –
Cameron,
Cool pic. What does the rest of that rod look like? Is that a dropper off that down wing? Nice tie BTW.
Bob
Zach,
Of course you are right. There are very talented authors writing for good publications and many of them frequent this site. It is right that they should be sensitive as to their own quality and it is wrong for me to criticize a group indiscriminately. Even though the tread is entitled a “rant,” it is unfair to good writers to lump them in with the “not as good.” I refuse to call any writing “bad” because if someone is willing to take the time to write it down, it is worthy of consideration. Only if it is blatantly wrong would I consider it bad.
But thank you for making my point. Where could I have ever gotten such instant feedback on the written word as my last post just elicited. Certainly not in a magazine. You should take it as a compliment that you provide a service that enables such instant response.
As to specific examples, I just cancelled my subscription to “Sporting Classics” because I wasn’t getting enough out of it. I do like Mike Gaddis and his prose although it is sometimes difficult to wade through. I honestly can’t remember well enough to cite specific examples of bad magazines but I would be willing to try. I “ghost” write technical engineering manuals for a major automotive manufacturing corporation. In that capacity, I have to rewrite much of what I do to get the facts right and to get the prose into the personal style of the editors. So I am not sensitive about my words. I couldn’t do what I do if I was. If you would like me to, I could read over the next few issues, a magazine of your choice, and compare it to one of my choice and comment on them. I would prefer to do it off line so as not to discourage anyone.
Thank you for your response, and again, my apologies if I offended someone with my generalized “rant.” I was out of line. And, at the end of the day, it was just one person’s opinion.
Godspeed and good fishing,
Bob
Morsie,
hmm, well researched and well photographed.
I would agree with you except I have never seen same in any mag I read. Most of the articles are “look where I fished,” “buy this gimmick,” or ” this is my opinion on that.” Much of the stuff was just plain wrong. Now I am sure there are some magazines that are the exception. It’s just that I lost patience looking and that would be my fault.
Now books, there’s another story. There are literally tons of good books out there. And I do have a lot of them.
Again, Godspeed and good fishing,
Bob
The main reason I don’t subscribe to FF mags is that they are not interactive. I far prefer a bulletin board where you can start topics, comment on topics, or just sit back and listen to discussions. I participate an 3 or 4 BB’s on flyfishing sites and I just love them. There is more information and opinions available than you can ever possibly digest. And if you like to write, many of these sites will publish your stuff in one way or another. Of course, you can’t make money or get famous this way, but that is not on my menu anyway.
My $.02
Godspeed all and good fishing,
Bob
My mentor.
“Soon I bought my first fly rod – a Fenwick – and my first fly reel. I now have more rods and reels – salt and fresh water, waders, flies, fly tying stuff, vests, than I can ever use. I have fished with Steve on many trips – summers – falls – springs – winters – days – nights – hatches – no hatches. We fished for trout all spring and summer, salmon in the fall, and Steelhead in the winter and spring. We’ve fished the White, PM, Fox, Two Hearted, Sturgeon, Pigeon, Black, Manistee, Muskegon, Little Manistee, Boardman, Rifle, Rogue, AuSable and so many small streams I have lost count. Steve has been my mentor and my fishing companion through all these last 20 years. Steve is 83 and is not a steady wader anymore. He still fishes from a float boat or a chair in the shallows but he can’t wade the big waters anymore. But like all fisherman, myself included, it is getting to be more fun to sit around camp and play with your gear and talk memories. Someday we will fish the streams of Heaven together.
And a few thoughts about the relationship between a mentor and his pupil as it relates to fly fishing. In times long gone by when a person grew up, lived, and died within five miles of where he was born and when nothing was written except a few scraps of paper and even those were colored with the unintelligible dialect and inconsistent phonetics of the time and place, the only way knowledge could be passed was from father to son, mother to daughter, mentor to pupil. And so it was with fly fishing.
These were the days when a rod was fashioned from tapered and bonded pieces of whatever wood was available. Long tapered rods of 16 feet or more to suit the stream. And line was woven from horse hair. Short lines they were – shorter than the rods. And they were tied to the end of the rod – no reel. Flies were tied of whatever manner of bird feather was available on whatever piece of brass or bone could be had to fashion a hook. Tied to size to represent whatever manner of insect that was hatching and died to match its color. And fished in whatever stream or river was available. All with not a written word of instruction. And all as varied as the land and people that pursued the pleasure. All peculiar to that five miles wherein someone would spend his entire life. All mentor to pupil, for nearly a thousand years before any consistent written record ever existed.
But today and especially since about 1970, there has more recorded, more written, more videoed, more photographed than ever before about every manner of fish, of stream, of river, of ocean that ever was. What happens is an overload of information that the poor mind cannot or will not sift through. I might suggest that it is now, more than ever, that you need a mentor. Someone who has sifted through the fog. Someone who can focus and localize all the information into something that can be fathomed and used. Someone who can bring a piece of the past into this information deluge. Such was Steve’s relationship to me. Since my father didn’t fish and died while I was still relatively young, he was my only teacher.
So when you learn to fly fish, in whatever proficiency you attain, you are tasked to pass on your knowledge – no– driven to pass it on. When someone asks you to teach them to fly fish, keep this in mind. This is not something that can be learned properly from a book.”
From You Can’t Make a Living Tying Flies on my website.
Godspeed,
Bob
David,
Not necessarily as subjective as you might be lead to believe. There is some science behind it.
Go to http://www.HATofMichigan.org on the e-book page and look at the Mechanics of Flycasting articles.
Warning – it could put you right to sleep.
Bob
