FWIW I think this thread is geared towards trout fishing more than warm water which is where my experience lies. Normally I agree that you should use the rod specified line weight and would have with this rod except almost everyone who is fishing them locally is doing so quite happily with a 3 weight line, since I already had 2 reels loaded with good WF3F lines I decided to go with that rather then set-up a new reel for my "mouse rod".