I go from a 5wt Winston XTR thru a 19wt Cape Fear Rod and lengths from 8' thru 16' for the salt. All of them have their times and place but I have favored my 2 handed rods since the early 1990's for my feet in the sand surf fly fishing, mostly.
I really am not a proponent of this new wave of "switch rods" in line weights 10 and under and under 12' in length unless one has a physical condition which prevents them from fishing 9' single handed rods (otherwise there is no line speed advantage in using these short switch rods over a guy with a 9' single hand rod with an average dbl haul).
With ones feet in the sand and two hands on the rod there is no reason to go short or light in line weights along our coastlines where wind and wave action is usually unfavorable during our best times to fish. JMO, Go long and heavy and fish when others must head in being unable to fish the conditions with their chosen equipment. I cannot count the number of oceanfront successful times I have had fly fishing during a Nor'easter or just a strong onshore blow with my 16' 11wt using a shooting head system every fall. But, it works equally well out front with calm conditions as well. Even small fish put on quite a fight when on a 16' rod (that is a lot of leverage length for the fish)
11-04-2009, 05:48 AM
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