Dorber’s new Ultrawave Blank
The Ladyfisher and I had the great pleasure of having one of these rods sent to us last summer. We used it on the spring creek and my nephew fished the Yellowstone and some of the waters in Yellowstone National Park with it. It’s an interesting concept. Great power. It will be interesting to see how anglers react to the radical design.
The Chronicler
I cast a prototype along with a good friend and rod-builder at the dorber shop in flippin a few years ago. We were pretty amazed with the shooting power of the rod. And we put it through some accuracy tests and didn’t see anything missing there.
Last year when Kenny & I were down to the Sow bug we went over to Dorber to visit Ray & Jeff. I had been told of the new Wave rod. Ray had one of the new prototypes that we took out and lawn cast. Kenny purchased a blank. It arrived shortly after we got back to the Ranch. Kenny has fished his several times and it is a cannon. He allowed all the contestants of the distance casting down at Lowell ID FI to cast it this past Sept, after the competition was over. Everyone cast it at least 25’ farther than they had cast during the competition. I have a new blank on my bench at this time. Is not completed yet.
The reason nothing has been written about it yet is because Ray just recently completed the patent on it. It is now complete.
The only place you can get them is from Dorber who are Sponsors here on FAOL. We will be writing more on this new rod shortly.
The extra 25’ was consistent with both of our experience, too, Denny. Casting greater distance isn’t really a big deal to me. But having one of these in an 8wt and 10wt for the windy days on the saltwater would probably be cool just because of the extra energy transfer from the double rod load action. I’m also wondering of they’re going to make them in 10+ wt models for tarpon, etc. and the possibility of 2-handed rods. An 11-12’ Wave switch rod with a shooting head could make an awesome surf combo for overhead 2-handed casting!
One of the comments nephew Tom Travis made after casting the rod extensively was that it should be a very effective tool in teaching the Wounded Warriors to cast - less effort, more power. That gets my attention!
Actually, LF, that’s sort of how I got peripherally involved in the R&D of the rod. Ray actually came to me about another distance casting rod he designed with the goal of creating a line shooting machine that would not require you to aerialize/carry much line. He thought it might be good for folks in wheelchairs and such. That was a straight stick with a bunch of guides on it to take the bellies out of the fly line during shooting. It was effective, but not anything earth-shaking. Several months later, he hands me this wavy rod with a ton of guides taped on it. LOL That was the UltraWave prototype. If you keep the reel lined up with your target and your forearm, it is a rocket launcher that will increase your shooting distance by about 20% (give or take a bit) with no more energy expended.
I have personally seen good distance casters launch 150 ft casts with it. In fact, someone you and I both know hit me in the back of the head with the leader butt/line tip doing just that at an event awhile back.
"I have personally seen good distance casters launch 150 ft casts with it. In fact, someone you and I both know hit me in the back of the head with the leader butt/line tip doing just that at an event awhile back.[/QUOTE]
Wow!!.. 150ft. with what kind of fly line design? Normal WF or DT. Sorry, I’m a little skeptical.
I was able to cast the one Denny had and it was definitely amusing. I would be interested in putting one through the ringers.
Being a little skeptical is healthy and to be expected. But I’m talking about GOOD distance casters - guys who can cast 110-120’ or more. To the best of my knowledge, the lines have generally been WF’s of various make and model. And when I got hit in the hat by my friend, I was pretty shocked myself!
Most distance caster are using SA’s Mastery ED, it is not a WF line at all but an extended body.
I find that the UltraWave also sets the hook quicker and stronger. When fighting a fish, it reacts quicker to absorb line slack, like when a fish makes a sudden movement toward you. It also roll cast extremely well.
The past couple of years, Fox, a lot of what’s been cast at the shows on demo rods has been the Sharkskin lines. And they are WF lines. Also, I would argue that the long belly distance lines like the Mastery Expert Distance and XXD are WF lines. They are just long bellied WF lines. They certainly are not DT lines or level lines. And in the standardized terminology of fly lines there are 3 basic types of floating lines: WF, DT, and level.
As a matter of fact, SA’s website uses the standardized nomenclature WF#F on all of their Mastery Series Expert Distance lines, as you can see here: http://buy.scientificanglers.com/lines/mastery-fly-lines/expert-distance.html
But, there is a growing trend among some to return to DT lines. In my observation, this is mostly among folks who follow the “carry all the line in the air and lay it down” approach. And I don’t know many of them who can cast more than 100’…especially since most DT lines are only 90’ long.
Thank you for correcting me. I thought I had read that SA and Rio were calling them Extend Body lines. But I agree, no matter what they call them, to me they are Weighted Forward.
I’m not too sure I get how the design could increase casting distance and/or ease of casting.
The desing is not unlike a recurve bow. The curve of the limbs on a recurve bow is designed to accelerate the arrow forward. The design of the blank on this rod is much the same, except in fly casting, the line also needs to be propelled backward as well as forward. Maybe it has power on the forward stroke, but on the back cast, it seems it the design would rob all the power and ability to lift much line off the water to recast. Simple physics seem to say this design would not perform as a traditional design rod where flex and power is loaded to the fly line in both directions to generate line speed, and distance.
Just simple observations without casting the rod personally.
I’m old fashioned and set in my ways, though I have no doubt that it represents good innovation and thought. My immediate question is, how do you turn that puppy when wrapping the guides?
It gets its extra energy transfer using the same principles of physics as a recurve bow. That much is true. But this is applied to a fishing rod instead of a bow. The bow designer uses the sine curve (wave) principle to propel an arrow using a bowstring drawn back between two perpindicularly arrayed sine curved limbs. But the fly rod is designed to do the work of a fly rod.
In my opinion, the rod only has an “x factor” on a forward cast that with the rod properly aligned. That means the reel must be aimed at the target throughout the forward stroke. But in any other axis of motion, the thing acts just like a normal fly rod. The curvature is very slight. It really doesn’t seem to impact anything else you do with a fly rod negatively. I didn’t design the thing. And I don’t have any stake in it. I’ve just cast it a couple of times and found it pretty amazing. And I’m just sharing with y’all what I DO know about it.
I’m new to FAOL and these strings. I tried to chat about this rod a few weeks ago but those guys are too fast for me. Thought I’d try here to glean a little more info. If I were to cast 150’, which I certainly can’t, I’d be in the pasture on the other side of the river. Can anyone tell me how it does at 30-40’? That’s about the extent of my range. Would this thing help get me any closer to 50’ I’m getting old and just don’t have enough power to get it there anymore. Bad shoulder, bum fingers, the whole bit. In short, is it any good at short distances?
Another concern I would have with this rod is any off axis torsional casts such as curve casts. On a straight fly rod, there is a smooth parabolic flex. When an overhead curve cast is performed, the fly rod tip is made to hook right or left just before the stop. This places a twisting force or torsion on the axis of the rod which along the smooth parabolic flex. So the resistance of the twist is along a single axis. With rod that had a straight axis, you can begin your cast with the rod canted at any angle since the rod begins with a straight axis.
The Dorber rod seems to have a sine wave pattern with the rod path displace to both sides of its midline axis. I would think that it would twist much differently than a rod that starts with a straight axis. And that twist would vary depending on how far off the true axis one begins the cast.
I would think that it would be harder to get a consistent amount of curve from cast to cast.
FlyFisherman did have a product review on the UltraWave and one of the major problems they stated was, if you rotated the UltraWave even slightly during the stroke and take the rod out of plane you will notice major problems. Also they go on to say if you have rotational cast poor choice. So what I get out of this review is you need to be dead on with your forward and back cast every-time or else 
The emperor has no clothes!
See the review for this rod in the latest issue (Feb/Mar 2011) of Fly Fisherman Magazine, page 20. The tester (Ross Purnell) noted several deficiencies including off axis casts such as spey casts. He also noted a sweet spot where there is a gain in forward power but only for a certain distance. There is a loss in back cast power and the rod is a 2 piece but heavier than comparable 4 piece rods.
“fly casting isn’t merely the perfection of sending a fly hurling forward toward its target. Fly casting is doubly difficult due to the mirror image backcast we sometimes ignore, but is the prerequisite to the great forward cast and delivery. This is the major problem with the reverse-s-curved UltraWave rod. While a specific curve in the rod shaft gives you an extra “oomph!” on the forward cast, it also gives you and equal. “ugh!” on the backcast. Whatever advantages you gain from this shape on the forward cast is a hindrance on your backcast. …Under actual fishing conditions, most of the time the distances are too short to take advantage of the curve in the but section. Another problem with the forward oriented rod is that if you rotate the UltraWave even slightly during the stroke, and take the rod out of plane, you immediately notice an array of awkward problems. (The rod is) definitely on the heavy side considering that the rod is a 2 piece (at 3.7 ounces) and several competitive brands have similar 4 piece rods under 3 ounces.”
Folks, there is no free lunch in physics. Basically, this rod is stiffer when bent backward than when bent forward which means that it bends less on the forward cast than the back cast. Newtons third law of motion states that for every action or force there on a mass there is an equal and opposite force by the mass.
When we cast, we apply force to a fly line (mass) through a flexible lever which is the fly rod. The fly line has inertia/momentum and air resistance that resists motion. The fly rod bends in response to this resistance of the fly line (the opposite and equal force) This bend in the fly rod is potential energy that is stored in the fly rod. The stiffer the fly rod, the less it bends. But make no mistake - whether the fly rod is stiffer or softer, it cannot store any more or less energy than the fly line’s resistance to motion. The energy stored is the same, but the amount of bend is different. So regardless of whether you are using this Dorber rod or a straight fly rod, neither rod can store more or less energy than the resistance of the fly line to motion.
What can differ is the rate at which we move the fly rod, which then changes the resistance of the fly line, which changes the energy stored in the rod. So if the timing of a stiffer rod allows us to move it faster than a softer rod, we can store more energy. What a stiffer fly rod also does is to release (straighten) the energy faster than a less stiff rod. It may seem more powerful because it releases the energy faster but in reality it cannot store more energy. The question is then is if you like the feel of the Dorber fly rod on the forward cast, why not just get a fly rod that matches the forward stiffness?
Now on the backcast, the Dorber fly rod is softer so it bends deeper. But it stores the same energy that is equal to the resistance of the fly line. It just has to bend deeper to do it. It takes longer to straighten and release that energy.
What this means is that when casting this rod, the timing differs for the forward and the backward cast. You need to wait longer after the backcast than you do on the forward cast when false casting. It seems to me that this is problematic, since we are used to the same delay on the forward and backward cast which depends only on the amount of line out and not on the differential flex profile of a rod between forward and backward flex.
It addition to the problem with off axis casts such as spey cast type motions, I would have with this rod is any other off axis torsional casts such as curve casts. On a straight fly rod, there is a smooth parabolic flex. When an overhead curve cast is performed, the fly rod tip is made to hook right or left just before the stop. This places a twisting force or torsion on the axis of the rod which along the smooth parabolic flex. So the resistance of the twist is along a single axis. With rod that had a straight axis, you can begin your cast with the rod canted at any angle since the rod begins with a straight axis.
The Dorber rod seems to have a sine wave pattern with the rod path displace to both sides of its midline axis. I would think that it would twist much differently than a rod that starts with a straight axis. And that twist would vary depending on how far off the true axis one begins the cast.
I would think that it would be harder to get a consistent amount of curve from cast to cast.
My question is what need does this rod fill? If I want a stiffer quicker rod for the forward cast, why not just get a stiffer rod that does not have the problem of differential timing on the forward and backward casts and the problems with off axis casts? Why get a rod that has 2 pieces and yet is heavier than a 4 piece rod?
If anyone can explain to me how this rod provides me free lunch in the physics of a cast, then I can see how it would offer me an advantage. I am certain that it does not.