I’m talking with a long time fly fisherman tonight and the subject of rod action comes up. I express my preferance for a fast action rod and say that fast action rods can cast better in the wind than a slow action rod but that the timing requirements for a fast action rod are much tighter. I said you have more room in the timing department with a slow action rod.
He looks at me and said that anyone can cast a fast action rod because just the opposite, they are more forgiving and you will cast into the wind easier with a slow action rod which is exactly opposite of my position.
I’ve seen a rank amateur cast a fast rod much better than a slower one, mostly because his casting stroke was too fast and the fast one could keep up with him. Accuracy on either rod was almost nil and the loops collapsed quickly, but in terms of just getting the fly out on the water somewhere, he did better with the fast rod.
Once you progress from that start point, though, to actual casting, you’re absolutely right.
I don’t think fast action rods are more forgiving. They require more precise control to get the most out of them in the greatest variety of situations. I find it easier to recover from timing errors with slower rods.
I think may be more difficult to cast into the wind with a slower action rod because the slower casting stroke that is typically used with slower rods will require that the rod will precisely controlled over a greater length of time. Casting effectively into the wind requires good technique regardless of the action of the rod and the longer casting stroke (duration) used with the slower rods gives more time for faults to show. This might explain Cold’s observation, which I have also observed.
I may be completely wrong.
Personally, I cast for distance and in the wind with accuracy better with my fast action rods compared to the slower action rods. However as the years go by the gap has narrowed considerably.
I have posted many times on this board concerning action types and the benefits and draw backs of different types of actions. To me it is thee differentiating quality of a rod when making comparisons.
I was using my 3 wt last weekend in 30 mph gusts. The Reddington CPS describes this rod as fast plus. It’s a canon for a 3 wt. My friend bought a St. Croix Avid in a 3 wt. The action is much slower and I would not consider it a possibility in 20 mph winds. It has absolutely no power when compared to the CPS.
Yes, maybe you can whip a fast action rod back and forth and cast 15 feet but to make 35 cast your timing is more critical with the fast action rod, you just have less of a window to make it happen, but what you can make happen in that short window is a wonderful thing to me.
My wife was fishing with my St. Croix Legend Elite 4 wt and while this is a true power stick in a 4 wt, as a beginner it just wasn’t letting her feel the stroke very well and the window of opportunity was so narrow that she was becoming frustrated. I pulled out a St. Croix Avid in a 4 wt and this matches her casting stroke much better. It is so much more forgiving with the larger window to load and unload the rod as long as she makes sure to give it a good pause on the back stroke and she watches her casting arc, she does fine with the 30 to 40 ’ casts on nice days. She was fishing with me in the 30 mph stuff and I just told her, it’s tough no matter who you are and what you are fishing with.
OK, I feel better about my position. I thought the whole world turned upside down and everything that I thought I knew was azbackwards. Sometimes people with more experience doesn’t mean more knowledge. I did fish with a guy who portrayed himself as a 20 plus year fly fisherman who could not throw a decent loop at 30 feet for trout much less any further. Time in a hobby doesn’t always equate to skill level.
I was using my 3 wt last weekend in 30 mph gusts. The Reddington CPS describes this rod as fast plus. It’s a canon for a 3 wt. My friend bought a St. Croix Avid in a 3 wt. The action is much slower and I would not consider it a possibility in 20 mph winds. It has absolutely no power when compared to the CPS.
I’ve got the 7’9" 3wt Avid and its one of the nicest rods I’ve ever cast. Of course, that means it matches my casting style better, rather than any inherent superiority of the rod. As far as casting in the wind with the rod…if that’s the situation I’m presented with, I usually try to take advantage of, or lessen the impact of the winds by smart positioning, so that I either place myself in a sheltered position, or I’m casting with the wind, or, at very least, perpendicular to the wind. A shorter, faster casting stroke is also a help. It CAN be done, but you’re absolutely right, it’s not much fun…but that’s why we have 5wts If the CPS is a canon, the Avid is a rapier…lighter, more delicate, and for me, far more enjoyable to cast in most normal conditions. It lets me forget about the technical precision of the casting motions and enjoy the fishing.
Normally, if it’s that windy, though, the 3wt stays in its tube and the 5 in its tube, and I spend a few hours at the vise.
personally…line weight is the largest factor when casting into wind, whether with a slow or fast action rod. You’ll outcast a slow action 5wt into a strong wind much better than a fast action 3wt;)
Fast action rods give folks the sense that they are casting better with “tighter loops”. But quite often if you watch their loops, it is not a thing of beauty:neutral: A slow action rod in my opinion, gives you far better line control when casting.
One more comment on the wind thing. They were gusts and it was not solid steady at that speed or I would have hid indoors myself. I did try to find or spent more times on sections of the stream where the topography broke the wind up. I also realize that if after bonefish on the flats with no hills to break up the wind or valleys to hide in that I would much prefer my 7 wt to any 3 wt. The point that I was trying to make is that the fast action 3 let me fish where as a slow action 3 would have been impossible.
My fishing partner, a fly fisherman with over 50 years of experience and someone who I greatly respect much prefers a slower action. He is a casting instructor. I absolutely believe in matching an action type to your stroke. In other words many people fish much better with a slower action rod. There is a bigger window of opportunity to make a good cast. After a long day on the water, my loops are not as pretty as they are when I began the day. With a fast action rod my focus and timing have to be more precise. Even with all of that I think that fast action rod, best suits my personality and my casting stroke. I would never say that it is for everyone. One of the true misfortunes of rod making these days is that most rods are faster action rods for the masses and they very well might be better served, being new in the hobby. to cast a slower action rod.
I own the St. Croix Avid in a 4 wt and even the St. Croix Legend Ultra is much slower, but the Legend Elites are much faster indeed and I own Elites, in 4, 7 and 8 wt. Bluntly the Avid and Ultra have been designated my wife’s rods or one of the kids use them and I never fish them anymore. They are quality rods with nice components, but the action isn’t for me. The Avid is a tremendously popular rod in my area for those who want a slower action rod at a reasonable price.
Rod action is more of a distance thing for me. The streams and rivers I fish rarely require more than a 35’ cast thus my preference in moderate to moderate slow actions. I would think that wind could foul any cast no matter the action or speed. However, using a faster rod to cast between wind gusts would seem wise as you can usually complete the same cast much faster with the fast rods.
I’ll gladly modify my statement to say that it would have made it impossible FOR ME.
It’s all good, if something else does it for you cool. The rod manufacturer’s love us because well all have different needs and opinions - more sales for the marketers.
It’d probably be impossible for me too, but I’ve seen some pretty amazing things done with slower rods.
I prefer the slow ones for just that reason: they’re slow. They’re simple, delicate, they communicate well, and, as I said before, they let me focus on enjoying myself rather than the technical minutiae of casting.
I agree, I find the slower action rods more relaxing and poetic - more zen like.
My own fishing style and my type I personality is like a race. I don’t relax while fishing, it is an intense (very intensive) huge focus proposition for me. There is nothing relaxing about it for me. It is so intense that it makes me not think of anything else. Something in my mind can shut off all other subjects in life except watching the fly, the line, the water. So this does give my mind a rest from the other tasks of life. Fishing itself is serious business for me. As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, fast actions rods fit my personality as well as my casting stroke and again for me my personality and how I fish is manifested in my casting stroke.
Wow, that was deep over a cup a coffee for this time of the morning -
These types of posts are always interesting in that there is no right or wrong answer. To some people, casting a slow-action rod into the wind is way easier than a fast action, for others, it’s the other way around. Personally, for me (love the slow-action), I have several glass rods that just don’t do well in a great deal of wind, but when I pull out the bamboo, which is also slow action, it becomes ridiculously easy (unless we’re talking gale-force). It also depends on what I’m fishing for. If I’m beach fishing, or something like that, I’ll grab one of my cannons…for trout, which is what I fish for the majority of the time it is always either one of the glass rods or bamboo…It helps me to enjoy the whole experience a whole lot more and relax, which is ultimately what I’m after.
but hey, it all boils down to…different strokes for different folks…whatever floats your boat, that’s what you’re going to do…
Just lost my good fast action 4wt(don’t ask) and had to use my slow action 5wt. . I thought I was flinging a rubber hose with that 5wt… The 4wt would cast better.
I think one of the true challenges for a well rounded fly fisherman is to be able to switch gears and cast both actions types, but most of us definately have a preference for one type vs another. When I said in my first post that I often comment on action types, this is where most beginners have trouble. They really don’t know what they like and they don’t have enough experience to say this fits me or that fits me. I think that most beginners would do better with a slow action rod because the window to make a good cast is larger.
I should force myself to go out and fish for a day with my St. Croix Ultra or Avid and try to not be a terrorist on the water and just chill one day, but like I said that is foriegn to me.
A man that know what he wants in an action type has the buying decision made much simpler for himself. If you like one type and you later change and come to enjoy something else at a different point in your fly fishing experience, it’s all good. I think that understanding the difference between action types and personality types is interesting. The correlation is somewhat of an enlightening moment for me.
Interesting thread. I think it is hard for someone new to the sport to know what he/she wants, probably a good reason to have a knowledable friend or trustworty shop owner. I recall my first rod many years ago was a glass Fenwick. I didn’t know it was “slow” other than I had time to fish out my smokes and light up during the back cast. By the time I got to graphite the
IM6s were the rod and they had what seemed then like fast action compared to glass. I haven’t gavitated to the newer fast rods. My casting stroke was pretty much sealed in my earlier days, so when it’s time to build a new one, I order up a St. Croix SC111 blank. Anyway, as someone above noted about thier fishing, I rarely cast more than 35 feet given the streams I fish and I do think the slower rods roll cast well. As someone else said also, it’s not really a matter of better but of preference.
Coughlin
That either a fast or slow action rod is “better” in the wind meaning one of those rods can cast better in every windy situation, with or against the wind, cross wind; and both short and longer casts in the previous situations.
That the same hand path is required to cast both rods. (Not timing, but the path that the hand takes to compensate for the bend of the rod during the cast)
The faster rod will always recover faster than a slower rod. Recovery time (the time needed for a rod to reach top center after it is bent) is different that rod action.
First of all a slower rod requires a more convex rod path to correct for rod shortening as the rod bends. The effective rod length (distance form hand to rod tip) shortens more with slower action rods and the path of the hand must compensate to prevent a tailing loop.
In my view then the need for more critical timing for a faster rod is offset by the need for a more precise rod hand path for the slower rod to achieve the same tight loop formation. This is why a sudden application of power to a slower rod is more apt to result in a deeper tailing doop. It is also why holding a book under the arm was used to teach casting with bamboo rods. It forces a convex rod hand path.
Secondly, there is no mention of need for a distance cast against the wind. Clearly if one must make the furthest cast possible against the wind, a faster rod will usually be able to reach out farther than a slower action rod of the same line rating.
“Slow” and “fast” actions are measures of how much the rods bend under identical loads and not how fast or slow the rods recover. I believe some “slow” rods recover faster than some “fast” rods. What is more important is how efficient the rod is in storing the energy of the cast and how efficiently it releases the energy that is stored. A slow rod can be more efficient that a fast rod and vice versa. I recall reading a discussion of rod “actions” by fly rod designers, and I think it was Jerry Seim who said that the SP (SPL?) was thought by casters to be a “slow” rod but in testing it recovered quit fast.
Think of a broom stick as a fast action rod and a floppy branch as a slow rod. Neither is an efficient casting tool.
I think it is difficult to make absolutist statements, but on balance I personally prefer faster rods in the wind.
Do you do any stillwater fishing? I think that I relax more when I am fishing a lake from a pontoon boat or float tube than I do when I am wading streams.
So if action preferences are related to personality, does that mean that since I fish bamboo, fiberglass, and graphite rods with actions from very slow to very fast I don’t have a personality???
If the CPS is a canon, the Avid is a rapier…lighter, more delicate, and for me, far more enjoyable to cast in most normal conditions. It lets me forget about the technical precision of the casting motions and enjoy the fishing.
