"Vibration line" / "Climbing loop"

The quotation is exactly from Grant’s letter to Donald Rudd and he does indeed mention “Vibration Line”. This may be an error by Grant but knowing the exactitude of his habit I doubt that. Grant was very particular about his lines and indeed I think that his lines may have contributed as much to his successes as his rods did. Of course Grant would I think have said that it was the resonance of his system that was special. Here is an extract from a letter by Grant to Capt. Tommy Edwards another quite brilliant caster and instructor – date 23 August 1933.

“Mr Robb of Playfair & Co Aberdeen has sent me your letter to him of the 8^th inst. And have asked me to write you thereanent. Mr Robb informs me that the line he sent you, and to which you refer, he had made as an experiment and that ¼ lb of silk was used in doing so. I conclude that, from such a weight of silk, the line must have been far too heavy for the length given. I am sending you herewith a wooden match stick, tapered from point to stem, giving the thickness a natural tapered line should have up to 40 yards or so. Observe that it is marked in three places representing a measurement of 10 yards between each mark, so that a line gauged from its thin end, and at each 10 yards corresponding to this graduation, can be little out.”

“The balance of my rod – the “Grant Vibration Rod” – is made on the principle of vibration, complete in itself, with power for weight, leaving no discretionary power to the maker, and, with the moveable rings adapted to it and with a correctly tapered line (which latter is difficult for linemakers to follow out), the rod, line and rings is one harmonious whole with nothing loose anywhere.”

In his catalogue of the day by John Macpherson “The Sporting Stores”, Inverness includes: “Lines – Mr Grant has designed a special line for use with the Vibration rod. These lines are made to his special taper, and are dressed by ourselves. The combination of the Vibration rod with this line gives the angler the only true and perfect weapon.”

I have seen, handled and photographed a rod, reel and line reputed to have belonged to Grant. The line looked like it was missing a length at the tip but it was still very fine, around 50 yards long continuously tapered and no thicker than a match at the join to the backing. It was square plait dressed silk which has a rough surface and no hollow core.

Climbing loops – I was going to try to cast a few climbing loops and then realised that I don’t know exactly what is being discussed. Can somebody show me a picture of a climbing loop?

Best wishes,

Ally Gowans

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Ally .... I didn't know about Grant's VIBRATION LINE to compliment his VIBRATION ROD ! A neat piece of history. Thanks.

Best I can do is a word picture after saying that I have never actually witnessed a true, "climbing loop" (except due to atmospheric phenomena such as updrafts or static electricity during a thunderstorm.) I see this as a fly line loop which is cast and aimed straight forward and parallel to the ground or water. Using no vertical curve technique nor upward trajectory, the loop travels out and starts to climb in an upward direction.

Some have claimed that this phenomenon is due to the shape of the loop as narrow and pointed at the top. While Noel Perkins et. al. have demonstrated that this loop remains aloft longer than semicircular or forward pointed loops, I didn't see that their studies actually demonstrated a true upward climb by virtue of loop shape alone. The fact that they calculated a, "lift" effect due to the shape of this loop, gave (I think) some the idea that this could make the loop actually climb higher than the horizontal direction in which it had been aimed.

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I received two photos, a photo1 and photo4. But all I see is tile at the very top edge and then a random brown background beneath, with a bunch of evenly spaced dots all over it in a geometric grid.

I personally don’t believe that we can use the bead chain as a representation of a flyline, as the discontinuity between each individual segment will have a significantly different effect on how energy will flow. Momentums are different, drags are different, it’s just not the same situation. What can we use to represent flyline? FLYLINE!!

Regards -- TAM

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I was awaiting that or a similar comment. A comparison between, not oranges and apples, but things even less related.

Gordy

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