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John,
I say "if it feels good, do it", to coin a phrase. I overline my 2 wt carp rods with a 3 wt. line because I'm more often than not casting short distances and I want the rod to load with a short line. Also, I have an 8 wt. Sage Xi2 that I like a whole lot better with a 9 wt. SA GPX line (my favorite line) than the same 8 wt line. If you're casting short distances a lot, or with big bugs, you may want to overline but if your trying to boom out long casts from a boat for, say, stripers or surfacing sandbass, you may want to stick with the line recommended for the rod. Experiment and see what feels good to you. I don't think there are any hard and fast rules here.
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You all may want to stay tuned and read Tom Kirkman's article next week on the Easiest Way to Break a Rod...complete with photos.
Is 'overlining' in there?
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LadyFisher, Publisher of
FAOL
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White43 - Here's the kind of situation where I sometimes get "yelled" at 'cause I'm "in the business" and some folks somehow seem to occasionally take some offense at an industry type wading in here - tho it almost NEVER happens here, on FAOL, thank goodness.
I've been a sales rep for some major FF companies for approaching 20 years now,one of them being the by-far leading producer of premium rods, so believe me, I've seen and heard a TON about overlining rods.
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE read JC's gruff reply, and Big Cliff's reply, and PLEASE believe 'em.
Cliff's is THE VERY BEST 3 paragraphs on the subject I have ever read or heard in my over 45 years of flyfishing. I wish he'd been my high school physics teacher.
If the rod says it's an 8 weight .... well, it is. At least it is to the rod designer. There's a good chance that a particular rod "family" might be far too fast or far too slow for a customer's casting style, but that's definitely NOT saying fast or slow is right or wrong.
You won't "wear out" the graphite in your rod by bending it. Given today's resins, it has a life span of ...oh, several eons or more. You WILL, quite possibly, break the puppy off right at the cork if you cast out 70 feet of 10 weight line on your 8 weight rod, and then try to heave all that line up off the water. I've done exactly that. I know it can happen.
Cary
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Why does everybody buy these high tech mod-fast to fast action rods and then overline them(in essence slowing them down)? I don't get it....
If feeling the rod load is reason, wouldn't it just be better to buy a softer action rod and keep the "right" line on it? Or maybe develop a better ability to feel the rod load?
That said, there can be a variance in what the optimal line is for a blank and what the manufacturer's stated line wt is( see [url=http://www.superbob.org/CC_Data.htm:0c199]http://www.superbob.org/CC_Data.htm[/url:0c199] for a list of blanks analyzed using Dr' Bill Hanneman's Common Cents system). But if I bought a 3wt from a shop and found out that it was really best with a 4 or 5 wt line, I'd be a little ticked off...
Charlie
[This message has been edited by chascomly (edited 19 April 2005).]
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xi,
Are you sure there were not other underlaying factors that could have contributed to the failure of the rod you mention?
We have reefed quite extensively on an albacore that was approaching 30#-35# with a 9wt, and I KNOW for sure that the rod had never even been close to being that stressed tossing ANY concoction of lines we use. As a matter of fact, the rod still tosses big bushy bass and striper bugs just fine, whether we're tossing a chunk of LC or an up-lined floater. But then we ain't too good at casting, so we may not know the rod is "off".
We have under-wrapped or double-wrapped a couple rods because we know the abuse ours must stand. One is a 8'9" 3wt LL series. It had withstood the task of bringing to hand a 20# plus stingray that got snagged while we were targeting halibut in the bay. It still does fine tossing for BG's, even. Had to poop-can the reel though. http://www.flyanglersonline.com/bb/smile.gif
.....lee s.
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Grand poo-bah - If he does wrap the rod as in Big Cliff's quote - lighter guides, etc. - then the tip has less swing weight, so it will likely feel a little faster. That would be a bit more apparent to a very old and "practiced" hand, but faster none the less.
But,I'm NOT saying that he should then go up a line size. That goes back to there being no absolute right or wrong as to "fast" or "slow". The rod just needs to perform as the user thinks he WANTS it to perform. And that individual preference is so darned subjective, I won't say "it's now a 9 weight".
Related thought --- As interesting and thoughtful and detailed as some system like the Common Cents formulas (just as a for instance) might be, the creator of some given "system" of rod-rating still starts out with, or is influenced by THEIR subjective sense as to how a fly rod "should" bend or load. So the system works very well for them & their style of casting, but perhaps less well for the next guy.
It just means that the manufacturers have to offer an assortment of "styles' or "families" of rods that cover a broad spectrum of casting-style preferences. It's become a dazzling array of choices, but the huge selection available these days means that sometimes the customer ends up getting the "wrong" style of rod.
That could bring up a whole other can of worms regarding how well or how badly a customer is listened to or attended to in a shop, but I ain't going to get into that here.
This part relates to lee s's post as well about reefing on big Albies:
No. I don't believe that actual fatigue-of-the-graphite will occur by overlining a rod, assuming just "normal" casting distances (whatever the heck "normal" means).And here I'm talking about rather recent, modern rods using current, state-of-the-art resins which are WAY more flexible and much more able to keep the graphite strands glued together than rods from say, the 80's.
As to my exploding-at-the-cork 8 weight,I was talking about sudden,quick, massive overloading versus the relatively smooth cycle of a "normal" cast, or putting a bend in the rod to fight fish.
There's a great big ol'huge difference in what the rod "experiences" when you're bending a rod waaaay over fighting a fish, as opposed to what the quick shock to it is when trying to pick up off the water what turns out to be waaaay too much line. It's a momentum thing - or a lack thereof.
If Big Cliff will chime in here, his inimitable grasp of physics-put-to-words can 'splain best what my feeble words struggle with.
(By the way, lee s, what in the WORLD were you doing using a 3 weight to fish for Halibut??)
Cary
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Sorry xi,
Even though we accept the responsibility of our ways, and expect warranty deletions (is that a word? http://www.flyanglersonline.com/bb/smile.gif ), we are a pain for some manufacturers. We usually do stuff all bass ackwards anyway and it IS amazing what rods WILL stand up to. http://www.flyanglersonline.com/bb/smile.gif
Heck, if we don't break'em, how do we expect to justify the purchase of a "new" one to the bride! http://www.flyanglersonline.com/bb/smile.gif http://www.flyanglersonline.com/bb/smile.gif
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I overline all of my rods. Having said that, I also build all my own and use only IM6 blanks. I like moderate rods and the IM6 blanks are plenty strong to handle 1 or even 2 sizes of line over the rating. Especially since most rods these days are labeled incorrectly so that they can be in on the fast is better craze. Bottom line, any rod will cast several different line sizes at different distances. The rod doesn't know if it's throwing 70' of 8wt or 50' of 10wt line since they will both weigh about the same. This is why the common cents system is so great. It enables us to make informed decisions on what line weight will work best at our "normal fishing distances". I fish a Forecast 7.5ft 4pc 4wt blank with a 6wt line because at the 40ft distances I fish, it loads the rod beautifully and practically casts itself. I find that with a WF4 line, it's just too much work. I'm not sure about possible blank failures that this would cause with the newer "high modulus" blanks, but I don't have to worry since IM6 graphite suits me just fine.
Lou
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Cary, Thanks for the compliment. You may be proud to know I got the largest part of my education in this sport from the team of Bruce, Rick, and the Rev. in San Antonio. If I was still there, you would have a retail rep who doesn't think the TCR is too fast.
Regarding the explanation of physics, I have tried to express that same thought many times on various posts and just now figured out how to best illustrate the point. Unfortunately, I am not as confident in my ability to explain this next issue, but I'll take a shot.
I am sure, however, that it has to do with the force being applied both so suddenly, and with increasing pressure. Say you have a rod bent into a 90 total bend already and a fish makes a one foot surge. As it surges farther, it will be fighting greater resistance from the rod and its velocity will most likely decrease. This is similar to the way a shock on a vehicle works. As the gas is further compressed, there is more resistance keeping the vehicle from bottoming out. If they tried to make shocks as light as we do fly rods, they might explode under extreme force too.
The gradual reduction in velocity due to increased rod or shock load is different from the casting motion which you described because you were undoubtedly accelerating through the casting stroke, rather than slowing, as would a rod-fighting fish. This means the force on the rod would be increasing at an increasing rate, rather than gradually topping out. You are overpowering the strength of the rod, which is to be expected. After all, you are using the grip of 70 feet worth of surface tension and the strength of a grown man against a hollow 5 oz stick.
How's that?
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Xi...Yes, the CC system may start from one person's thought of what a "X" wt rod should feel like(there is a little more than this to it however). Once you know how the system applies itself, you'll be able to determine what weight rod you want based on the data. The system allows itself to be carried through to ANY type of rod. So, instead of dealing with what Sage's rod designer thinks is a fast 4 wt, and what Lefty thinks is a fast 4wt, and what loomis's rod designer thinks is a fast 4wt, you have one point of reference to go to allowing you to compare all of them with a bit of science versus subjectivity.
Charlie
[This message has been edited by chascomly (edited 21 April 2005).]