I didn't know where to put this or whether this forum allows referrals to other BBs. Perhaps it belongs in the casting section since there is no fly rod section. Moderators can pull the post if this is not allowed. I posted the following explanation on the North American FFF.

Fly rod line rating, power, and action - an explanation. - The North American Fly Fishing Forum

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Silver Creek- "Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought"....Szent-Gyorgy

good article, the last bit poses a question given that butt diameters vary between manufacturers, i.e, Scott, thick, Sage, thin, for the same given length/weight.

and your point is?
regards
bert

I got as far as this:

The lifting power of a rod is related to the strength of the butt section of the rod, whether a fly rod, a casting rod, or a spinning rod. If we say that the 0 degrees is horizontal to the water surface with +90 vertical being tip up and -90 vertical being butt up, any lifting angle that is positive places stress point toward the upper portion of the rod and any negative angle places the stress point toward the butt. The larger the positive angle, the stress moves more toward the tip; and the greater the negative angle, the stress moves toward the butt. Consider that if the angle is -90 with the tip down and the butt up, there is no stress on the rod at all, all of it is on the reel.

and stopped reading - sounds like the rod is upside down at -90!!

Moi aussi
bert

James,

I truly wish you had given me the courtesy of a proper hearing. If you had read further, you would have gotten the point I was trying to make with that illustration.

At -90 degrees, the rod is upside down pointing directly at the weight being lifted. What this does is to take the rod out of the equation and protects the fly rod from being broken. This demonstrates the fact that when you are hooked to a weight or a fish that is too great for the power of the rod, you need to point the rod at the weight (fish) to protect the rod.

It also illustrates the fallacy of the proposition that I cannot pull as hard with a 1 wt rod as I can with a 12 weight rod. If I point the 1 weight rod at the fish and I can pull as hard as the tippet and the reel drag allows me to pull. Put a 20 lb tippet on that 1 wt rod and I can pull 20 lbs as long as the fly reel allows it. A 12 wt fly rod cannot pull any harder.

Since you didn't read further you missed where I later said, "If you point the lighter fly rod right at the fish, you can put 80 lbs of pressure on a fish as long as the tippet is 80 lbs and the reel drag can pull 80 lbs. So rod angle determines how and where the rod stress is. It determines where the rod breaks." This is exactly the point of the -90 degree angle illustration.

Is that not what we do to protect the fly rod when we are so snagged that we cannot get it loose? To prevent breaking the fly rod, we point it at the snag and pull to break the tippet lest we break the rod tip by jerking up on the rod. What I am saying is that we can employ that same strategy whenever a light fly rod is in danger.

---------- Post added at 06:20 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:16 AM ----------

The North American FFF does not allow cross posts and I didn't know if the this BB had the same rules.

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Silver Creek- "Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought"....Szent-Gyorgy

True.

However, for given series of fly rods in the same line weight from a manufacturer, the longer fly rod will have a thicker butt and greater power. So for a Sage One in a 5 wt, the 9 ft rod will have a thicker butt and greater power than the 8 ft rod. I thought it was understood that I was referring to different lengths of the same model and line wt, but perhaps it needs more emphasis.

I wrote, "After he said that, it was obvious to me that a rod that was a foot longer would have a thicker butt section than a shorter rod of the same model and action."

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Silver Creek- "Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought"....Szent-Gyorgy

sorry, i wasn't sure, Scott appear to have taken the butt section seriously for the same reasons, they tend to use oversize butt diameter, other manufacturers thicken the carbon at the butt, I'm guessing for reasons you describe.

I'm thinking though, if manufacturers have solved this, we don't need to think about it.

SC - You're right about the point you're trying to make, however I thought the -90/+90 paragraph was clumsy. Not many people will associate dead lifting a weight from directly beneath their feet (which the example requires) with fly fishing. If you'd of just left it as 'if you point the rod at the weight/fish you'll never break it' then I'd of been happy.

I now understand your point. In my defense, I wanted the example of lifting dead weight to correlate with the initial video in the post. I admit I did a poor job of that. I assumed the correlation was clearer than it obviously was.


Using the video as an example, I was trying to explain rod angle and rod power of as the ability to lift dead weight. That is why I used the -90/+90 example.

I can see that I should have been more specific about how the explanation of rod angle referred back to the video. I should have said that I was doing the same test as Rajeff, but from a bridge so that I could point the rod at the weight.

I appreciate your comments since it allows me to make the post much clearer.

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Silver Creek- "Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought"....Szent-Gyorgy