Lou...
Please
bring this up again when our Group starts up again in
August.
Re.
the short one-piece rods:
Back
in the 70's, many salty fly rodders came to prefer the one-piece 12 wt. Kennedy
Fisher fly rods. These were 9' rods, but very strong. They were
heavy, however, though well muscled and practiced anglers found they cast
well. After many casts they were fatigueing. In those years, we took
a long time to land tarpon which resulted in failure of release or the fish
being eaten by sharks.
Here
in the Keys (as well as in many other salty destinations) many of us have gone
to strong, powerful, shorter ONE PIECE fly rods with no ferrules. Steve
Rajeff came up with them after I hammered on him for about 10 years to get
G.Loomis to do it.
Started with G.Loomis finding out that shipping one piece 9' rods was a
great deal more expensive that shipping with the entire rod tube package no
longer than 9'..... so Steve designed some of them at 8' 10" .... WE FOUND
THAT THEY CAST JUST FINE AND FOUGHT BIG GAME FISH BETTER. They were
lighter and didn't break at the ferrules under the max. stress of fish over
100lbs. (That sometimes happens when one of the ferrules gets the slightest bit
loose.)
Many
of our Florida skiff guides have embraced them. Of course, they don't lend
themselves to travel, since you can't break them down.
We,
then, went back and noted that my very favorite tarpon rod had been one of the
G.Loomis GLX MEGA 10-11 Models, 8 1/2' in length.
When I
lent that rod to my tarpon buddies here in the Keys, they all lusted for one
...... but G.Loomis had discontinued making those.
I had
suspected this would happen, so I'd purchased 3 extra blanks. My buddies
wrapped them up and still fish them in preference to anything else on the market
today.
Now
I'm leaning heavily on Steve to make this design again in a one piece
model. (I'll do it again this morning as we have breakfast
together)
WHY ?
ADVANTAGES:
1.) This rod casts very well. It has a tip stiffness
just perfect for flinging a tarpon line-leader-fly out to
Kingdom-Come.
2.) Made up with REC Titanium/Nickel RECOIL guides,
it is light in hand.
3.) As with any fly rod, the shorter it is, the lighter it
feels to the angler. This is because there is less weight out at a
distance from the hand. (Two fly rods can weigh exactly the same on a
scale. One is longer than the other. The longer one will always
feel heavier to the caster and will result in earlier
fatigue.)
4.) The shorter the rod, the more effective pressure the
angler can apply to a fish. Big game salt water fish often require the use
of all the pressure a strong angler can muster for long periods. (The
softer tip-to-mid-section literally straightens out as I fight a big tarpon, so
I end up applying pressure with the butt section. That's almost like
fighting a fish with a 4' - 5' rod. A tremendous
advantage.)
As I
see it, the "action" of a fly rod is where in bends. The
"strength" of a fly rod is how much it bends under a given load.
The engineer looks at it as the stress it will accept before
breakage.
5.) Near the end of a battle with a tuna or other deep water
pelagic, the angler must use the butt section of the fly rod to LIFT the fish
bit by bit to the surface for landing. In the past, I and my anglers have
broken many fly rods when attempting this.
6.) Considering 4.) & 5.), This Mega rod has a
beefed up butt section which yields a good 20 lb. lifting capacity without fear
of breakage.
7.) Our one piece rods have no ferrules to break or come
loose.
8.) They are made with the corrosive salt water environment
in mind.
We have also found that the G.Loomis one piece Cross
Current 8'10" are very good for this kind of fishing. They cast well and
are almost as good as my Mega for fighting these beasts.
DISADVANTAGES:
1.) These rods don't have the finesse and "feel"
for trout fishing.
2.) You can use them for making effective
mends.
3.) They are not good for single handed Spey
moves.
4.) Much too "powerful" for light
tippets.
5.) They can be difficult to cast for anglers who
come to the salt after years of fresh water fishing with longer rods, because
they can't easily adapt to the dramatic change in timing needed when suddenly
goint to shorter/stiffer fly rods.
When we get back to our Group messages, we'll visit
this topic. As we do that, I'll get some input on fly rod technology which
goes way beyond my personal knowledge and experience for all of us to
digest.
Gordy