Walter & Group...
Tim Rajeff comes in with his answers to questions 3.) & 4.) (As many of you know, Tim is a champion fly caster. He designs ECHO rods. His brother, Steve, is also a champion caster who is fly rod designer for G. Loomis):-
3.) Try to come up with a good description or definition of the term ROD ACTION.
4.) We have all heard of casters describing a fly rod as having lots of POWER. What do you think they mean ?
Gordy,
I have often given
equipment talks where we go over what I believe a rod action and power are. The
two get confused and mixed up because it is rare to find a soft fast action rod.
It seems that most fast action rods are relatively stiff. My standard
definitions are:
Rod action is where a
rod bends while under load.
Rod power is how much a
rod bends under a given load.
There is a ton of stuff
I use to support the two statements but it might be best to have people look at
the stuff on our web site under articles to see pictures and a short video of
the definitions I use. www.rajeffsports.com
I use a system when
designing rods that combines action and power into a single formula. My system
breaks a rod in three zones, the tip 1/3 of the rod, the middle 1/3 of the rod
and the bottom 1/3 of the rod. I give each of the three sections a numerical
value to one decimal of accuracy. The number or power rating I give each section
corresponds loosely to the line size that would match the sections stiffness.
For example, if I described sections of a 9 foot rod and said that the bottom
section had a #5.5 stiffness, the middle section had a #5.4 stiffness, and the
tip section had a #5.0 stiffness. One could say that the rod was a fast action
relatively stiff #5 rod. On a different rod if I said that the bottom section
had a #4.9 stiffness, the middle section had a #4.9 stiffness and the tip
section had a #4.5 stiffness. One could say that the rod was a fast action soft
#5 rod. One more example, if I said that the bottom section had a #4.9
stiffness, the middle section had a #5.3 stiffness and the tip section had a
#5.3 stiffness. One could say that the rod was a slow action medium stiff #5
rod. So by looking at three numbers a person can tell what the action and power
of a rod is. I don?t know if other people use this system but I have been doing
so for a long time as a way to communicate both action and power to my
colleagues.
Take care,
Tim
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Tim... A clear answer.
I remember testing a number of fly rods with your brother, Steve, several years ago. Steve had numbered the butt sections, the two mid sections and the tip sections of several 4pc. rods. We went out in my skiff and cast various lines with different combinations of sections as we tried to come to a conclusion about the "action" of each combo. and its line rating. Steve also did that with a number of other casters before arriving at his own final conclusions. We didn't use a numerical formula. Those numbers on the blank sections were only needed to identify them so we could write down the combinations which gave us the results we sought.
You've taken it another step beyond our trials made at that point.
Gordy
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19.) I actually had a student who had a severe allergy to cork. He'd already purchased two expensive fly rods and didn't want to spend a lot more money to solve his problem. Can you come up with a practical solution ?
This chap solved the problem in a different way. Fortunately, he had just bought these two rods and had stripped off the plastic from the cork grip on one of them, but had not used it for fishing. He left the plastic on the first one and took the other back to the fly shop and exchanged it for another which still had the plastic in place.
He used one of those rods a year later to take his Masters exam. He passed.
When using other rods, he donned a glove made with thin sun resistant material.
Gordy
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ACRONYMS
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From Michael Jones :