I took my hera rod out tonight to further test it's potential as a fly fishing tool. I wanted to see if it could cast a fly without any weight other than the line, and as the hour was getting late, I chose a yellow bluegill popper as the test fly just so I could see something, perhaps the ripples in the water where I crash landed the fly. Casting the fly with just a level line setup was work. I tried modifying my stroke, making it faster or slower, shorter or longer to get as much distance as I could, resulted in a few casts that I would call decent. I couldn't see that well but the casts seemed to land far enough out to be useful. A long stroke with increasing speed and and abrupt stop at the end like a standard fly fishing stroke seemed to be about the best but not as easy as it would be with a real fly rod. It seems to me in order to fish lightweight flies with this rod I'll need to add a length of fly line to the setup to give me the weight I need.
In short I think this rod has the potential to be a good rod for fishing flies, especially flies a little too heavy for a tenkara rod, and will let me tackle large fish.
As a bonus I caught a bluegill. I tried to take a picture with the cell phone but no flash made for a really lousy pic.