G'day,

I am making my first fly rod and am about to determine the guide positions. I plan to attach the guides temporarily then do some test casts to make sure the positions are OK.

My question is this - the fly rod is rated as a 5 wt, and I will fish it with 5 wt line. The line I currently have on my fly reel is 7 wt. If I do the test casting with the 7 wt line will that change any of the guide positions compared to doing test casts with a 5wt line?

My gut feeling is that the line weight might affect guide size rather than position, but I'd like your opinions.

Thanks
David Boyle

Not really, as long as you understand that the 7 weight line = the 5 weight line, but only at shorter distances. The rod casts weight, not line number. So you see that 20 feet of a 7 weight line might weigh the same as 30 feet of a 5 weight line and thus the rod will load normally.

However, if you begin to push out a lot of that number 7 line, the rod may be overloaded and casting may be a bit sloppy. If that happens don't attribute it to the guides. But even so, results should be relative as long as you make the tests with the same line for each set-up. In other words, don't use a number 7 line on one set-up and number 5 on another.

As far as your static distribution test goes, the line number rating makes no difference. I often use orange dacron just to make it easy for me to see.

.................

Tom's on the money. I use whatever wt. line is handy within reason. I am not going to purchase every wt. line just for testing the different rods I build. Rather, understanding the wts as Tom mentioned is key. You will have line slap, chatter, etc... with the 5wt. line just as you would with the 7wt.