This will doubless sound slightly 'heretical' to all of you dedicated rod builders but I am seriously wondering if it would be possible to use a parabolic or softish actioned coarse match type rod (11foot - ish) as a 'switch' type rod for an AFTM 5wt WF line (assuming I can match the rod to the line rating) to use for stillwater and float tubing.

My reasoning is less strain on my old joints and the ability to fish areas with no room for an overhead cast.

Is this idea a possibility or are there points against which I have not considered ?????

Would be grateful for your feedback.

Nigel

Maybe so. If you have one, try it out and let us know. But if you don't - why bother? Any regular fly rod/blank could be extended 4-9" at the butt, either with a glued in extension at build stage or by adding a 3-5" fixed or removable extended fighting butt. And batson switch blanks are about $80

Diawa used to make one that doubled as both by reversing the handle, cant speak for bait casting but they spey cast extraordinarily well, i would guess this is not as unusual as it sounds.

no reason why not ,back in the early days of resser fishing ,the Grafham Ghost from Dons of Edmonton was a coarse blank ,slightly modified ,and for lead core work some of us used chopped carp blanks ,mine was a North western blank .
I t still holds up the odd runner bean or two !
However there are as some one said earlier custom made switch rod blanks .
I own several longer B&W rods that have wee extension buts that can be used double handed by using a thumb and forefinger grip on the butt.
works for me and the boy when he was much smaller !

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Andy Wren
Winter grayling taking a year off !
Claret not just a great dubbing colour!

My joints are a bit creaky too, I find shorter rods easier to cast , the longest I use is 9ft 6", on the tube I never found any reason to go longer, for roll casting maybe.. .
Have you got some flyfishing in Bahrain then?

Bob

bit obvious, but any 9' rod with right line and technique can roll cast/switch cast better than any adapted course/match rod!
spend £60 getting a couple of lessons in technigue rather than trying to adapt wrong gear for job.
regards
bert

Nigel, I'd say this idea definitely has merit, with one caveat: get a coarse rod with sliding rings so you can choose where to attach the reel, rather than be restricted by the position of a fixed reel seat.

Reason: for trotting, the reel is positioned at the top end of a very long handle. To me at least, if this position is fixed, it places the reel a bit too far up the rod for fly-type casting, and certainly makes it harder to use as a true switch rod (ie switching between one- and two-handed casting at will) because the extra length, and to some extent weight, of the long trotting handle is then in the wrong place for comfortable one-handed casting.

All the same, you've given me a few ideas too, and I think I might dig out my experimental trotting rod again for a spey-cast or three!

Theo

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Hi Guys,

Thank you all for the feedback....very interesting !!!!

Ranges from "spend £60 getting a couple of lessons in technigue rather than trying to adapt wrong gear for job."....to: "
cant speak for bait casting but they spey cast extraordinarily well, i would guess this is not as unusual as it sounds."

Thinking more about it I quite like the idea of adding a 12" fighting butt (if I can find and fit one !) but I am also beginning to suspect that the only difference between a coarse rod and a fly rod (in the less expensive bracket ) is the handle and a bit of marketing / badge engineering !!!!! i.e. same blanks !?

Nigel

p.s. Bob, not too much flyfishing here ! (LOL) but I will be back in Scotland fairly soon !

I changed a Bob Church "Dave Shipman Drifter" to an all round trotting/bait/light double handed fly rod so I don't see why the opposite can't be true if you find the right blank.

No need to fit a 12" fighting butt, Nigel, there's already 14" of extended handle / fighting butt below the reel seat on my 13ft Fladen Maxximus, and I suspect that would go for most similar rods.

Whilst measuring this I've also just noticed that the butt cap has fallen out during storage - and it's clear that it would be easy to cut however many inches off the handle to make it a more comfortable length, and then reinsert the butt cap. (Yeah yeah, again!)

One other thing: the upper rings on the blank are very small, being made only for mono, so you might get quite a lot of resistance to a fly line. But I'm sure Steve Parton could whip on a set of suitable Fujis, no problem at all?

Theo

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