Quote Originally Posted by bobbyg View Post
Those are some rather heavy line weight graphite rods you cite. Naturally they are gonna come in at 4 oz. or more.
Most graphite trout rods, relatively speaking, in the 4 to 6 weight class are gonna weigh around 3 oz. or less.

Heddon never made a Victory model and the Stream and Lake was produced by Wright & McGill Granger.
The problem we have is that you think "Trout" rods. I don't have a problem with that. However, you would most definitely be 'underguuned' if you fished saltwater or weed/snag infested waters for large mouth black bass that we have here in.the south along the Gulf coast. Woe be unto you if you tried casting a 2/0 deer hair bug with a 4wt. rod and line; especially with the winds we typically experience where I live. Nine wt. rods and lines are often the 'rig' of choice for just such fishing.

Mea culpa, yes, I did get the makers names wrong. It is a Wright McGill "Victory" as well as "Stream and Lake". With respect to your comment about graphite rods in the 4 to 6 weight class coming in at around "...3oz or less...",this is going to be a function of length as well as the generation of graphite they are mode of. All weights I have presented are for nine foot rods. My 9ft 6wt comes in at 4oz., again in excess of the 3 oz. you cite. With one exception, all of my graphite rods are 2 piece, and are made of second generation through IM6 graphite. As you are aware, I am sure, the modern graphites are less dense, and thus weigh less than the older generation graphites. I am beginning to suspect that we are comparing 'apples to oranges' relative to graphite rods.

If rod weight is so important, why is it then that graphite rod makers do not advertise, mark their rods, and otherwise promote them based on their actual weights; as was done for the older bamboo rods? Moreover, why is it that the modern bamboo gurus, Nunnley, Oyster, Boyd, Cattenach, to name a few, no longer stress 'weight', with respect to their rods? Just like the graphite builders, they emphasize line weight.

Actually, the issue of rod weight, as we have been discussing it, is meaningless unless we establish specific criteria, such as rod length, type of ferrule (slip over vs spigot), materials (i.e., graphite generation), etc., as each has it's own bearing on the weight of the finished product.

Cheers!