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Walter & Group.....
[GH] Re. answers to Jim Gill's question on how rod designers determine the making of rods of different designations -
I just finished talking with Lefty Kreh about fly rod design in terms of the determinations of different line wt. ratings. As most of you know, Lefty has been designing and testing fly rods at a practical level for many years. He is still involved in fly rod design for Temple Fork.
Learned a lot.
Lefty looks at it this way :-
There are basically three "divisions" of fly rods., with 2 "in-betweens"
1.) Rods designed primarily for control of PRESENTATION. These are made for small, light flies, delicate presentations and the use of light tippets. These rods are designed to be light and have sufficient flexibility to make delicate presentations with small flies as well as to allow the use of light (8X - 5X) tippets.
Range = 3 wt. - 6 wt.
2.) Rods designed for somewhat larger flies, greater fishing distance, handling winds, yet with reasonable ability to present accurately and without fierce splashdown.
Range = 8 wt - 10 wt.
# "In-between" = 7 wt. (Neither best for distance nor for small flies and delicate presentations. Preferred by some for bone fishing, etc.)
3.) Rods designed as efficient tools for casting large/heavy flies, and fighting powerful/large fish. These rods are not made for long distance casting; rather medium to short distance casts made quickly to large fish.
Less a casting tool and more a fish fighting device.
The tip section is designed to make the needed casts and yet "collapse" along with most of the mid section so that the big game angler is effectively fighting the fish on a short, strong rod (the butt section)
Most of these have great "lifting capacity" with strong beefed up butt sections necessary for finishing off a large tarpon which is 6' - 8' down or a tuna which has sounded.
Range = 12 wt. + (Some billfish rods I've used go up to 15 wt. and beyond since the advent of the IGFA 20 lb. tippet class.)
#In-between = 11 wt. These 11 wt. rods share the characteristics of division 2.) and 3.) but don't fit perfectly into either category.
Here is something else I learned :
Expert rod designers, as I suspected, have become very good at designing the mandrils for their blanks. Diameters and tapers to yield varying degrees of stiffness, action and strength. Various amounts of cloth and various thicknesses of this material and "pre-preg" (fibers woven into cloth and impregnated with resin) are used as the designer goes from one rod designation to another.
What I didn't know, is that sometimes the 3.) division rods are made with graphite material for most of the blank. The butt sections may be of fiberglass either alone or mixed with graphite. This is done because of glass having much greater resistance to breakage when stressed and bent.
One "simplification" (Lefty has always been good at these) is to design the fly rod around the size and weight of the FLY.
If the fly rod designer just stuck with that principle, he wouldn't be far off !
Gordy
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