So at 6:30am this morning I was engaged in my usual ritual of lifting weights. While going for an unusually heavy bench press lift, I like to mentally recite a little phrase that gives me a little extra push:
"What the mind believes, the body can achieve" I'll admit it's a bit corny, but I'll take any extra inspiration I can get when there is a couple hundred pounds just a foot away from crashing down on your chest...
Ayway, inbetween sets I was thinking about the conversation several of us engaged in on this board last night regarding grip weight, and an interesting though occured to me; how much of what we do in so far as building rods is because we have convinced ourselves it is "the better way" even though there may be no factual evidence to support it. So I started thinking about my little phrase....

"What the mind believes, the body achieves" and how it might influnce the use of a fishing rod.

I'll give you an example; I have had guys tell em that the minute they switch to single foot ceramics on a flyrod they INSTANTLY add 20 feet to their cast. Could it be that they believed beforehand that they would increase their casting distance, so they unconciously cast a little harder or double hauled a bit quicker in order to manifest their belief about these new fangled guides?
ANother example; Not too terribly long ago, I had a bunch of blanks that were made of the standard 33mil modulus material, some were painted matte black, some were painted Gloss Green, some were Gloss Clear. They were all the same taper, same material, same rod for all intents and purposes except the color. There were several Bass fishermen that came in my shop and claimed they knew who made these blanks, and that the black blank was of a much higher quality and was much lighter and crisper than the other 2 colors. They even held them in their hands and said "Man...can't you feel the difference? This Black blank is so much lighter and more sensetive" Even though the facts (and my invoice from the manf.) indicated otherwise. I am wondering if their beliefs about the rod influenced the way they fished in order to validate that the rod was more sesnitive....maybe they concentrated a bit more on the bite, or they were a little more diligent in their casting accuracy or whatever.

I am just curious to know how much we allow personal preference to unknowingly dictate the way we use a rod in order to achieve a certain level of performance.. More importantly how often do we convince ourselves that certain designs or construction methods or components are better, and then unconciously manipulate or use the rod in such a way to influence the outcome to prove our belief correct?



Andy

You're probably making a statement that proves itself quite often. But for me, I tend to look at the results and go from there. When I try something, I expect it to perform up to my expectations and if it doesn't, I chunk it and try something else. About 50% of what I come up with does what I thought it would do. The other 50% disappoints and is relagated to the junk pile.


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

I think I have the perfect example of what Andy is saying. Bass fishermen are extremely consious of weight of a rod. They will spend a large amount of money to get a rod that is lighter. I took some of Andy's Allstar Special blanks and mounted one of the "heavy heavy" encapsulated pieces of Bad To the Bone on the rear end of a split grip. This chunk of finish perfectly balances the rod and when you pick them up the "apparent" weight feels like the rod weighs nothing in your hand. They will say this is the lightest rod I have ever held in my hand! The encapsulated piece weighs more that all the rest of the rod combined! I will bring some of these to Charlotte for you to feel and I am thinking about naming them Cajun Helium!

Gon Fishn



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/29/2005 12:35PM by Bill Stevens.

Tom,
How about you bring your "trash pile" and combine it with Andy's "garbage can" rod blanks? I'm thinking I'd be quite happy just looking over "what didn't work" maybe even salvaging some of it..... I woudn't even charge you a disposal fee! LOL

In watching the many Bass Professional fishermen describing their methods it is almost a certainty they all mention "confidence" as one of the most important factors in their success. Confidence is an attitude or belief system that each one creates for themselves based upon their individual assumptions. It applies to their equipment as well as their technique. Some include superstitions as do althletes in other performance sports. A lucky charm; wearing the same hat all year; a baseball player making sure to never step on the foul line; the list is endless. Human nature is among the least logical of all systems for deparating fact from fiction. Unfortunately for those of us trying to educate the public of the proven advantages of a given advancement; such as the spiral wrap; we are confronted by the momentum of years of prejudicial acceptance of "the accepted way".

The balance and perceived lightness issue is slightly different. Comfort and good balance in a rod will be well received by most. Obviously some are more discerning of slight improvements than others. Some, frankly, could not care less. Just as each rod builder chooses his/her own of excellence to strive for before accounting their work as meeting that goal, we get to select the portion of the marketplace which we wish to serve. Obviously our market will shift as we elevate our skills and raise our prices accordingly.

This is a wonderful part of the craft. There is a demand for all levels of work and the ceiling of excellence keeps rising. For me the process of improving is more important than achieving any one level of expertise. As in all acts of creating... the wonder and joy in the doing far outweighs the satisfaction yielded upon completion of the project.

One landmark for me is to set my goals high and not allow the judgement of others cloud my own assessment of my work. I like knowing the client is pleased and will do all I can to make that happen; but I am not going to judge my work based on their reaction. I set the goal and I determine how well I did in reaching that goal. The reaction of my peers is much more helpful and valued. Just because I strive to do work of a certain quality dones not mean that a person who does not value that type of rod for his fishing activity is "wrong". Each person has the right to determine where they place their confidence
and the the of gear they feel at home with.

I like setting my own standards so that those who are attracted to my work will be the right clients for me.
Educating the fishing public in qualitative improvements is always a great ideal, but, like any other form of "enlighenment" the new seed has to be planted in fertile ground. If someone has to much invested in the status quo I would rather move on until I find another person who eagerly grasps the information.
Sorry for the essay. I have too much free time...
Happy New Year,
Dave

I’ve seen this phenomenon often in the flyfishing world. While fishing a fairly well known stream here in Pennsylvania I have great success with a particular fly. This fly has been shared with other fishermen I’ve come to know, who when presented with this fly come back to tell me that it didn’t work at all for them – on the same day that I have had fine success. Maybe it was in the presentation, or maybe they just didn’t feel confident with this fly.

Jeff Shafer

Dave G. - That post alone made all of my visits to this site worthwile for the year. Very well said and exactly on target for me. Your plow will easily hook to my mule!

I am glad you had some free time!

Bill Stevens



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/29/2005 08:13PM by Bill Stevens.

Andy, you're so right. When I first got out of school over twenty years ago, I went into practice with this old eye doctor. One day I examined a patient, and after considering all the data at hand I made a change in his eyeglass Rx that I felt would improve his vision and make his reading more comfortable. To my horror, he came back the next day and practically threw the glasses at me and told me they weren't right and he couldn't see out of them at all. The older eye doc told the fellow to leave the glasses for a couple of hours and we would grind new lenses for him. We checked the glasses to make sure the optics were clean and the Rx was exactly what I had prescribed and then he looked my numbers over carefully and asked me how confident I was in my Rx. I told him that I felt it was correct with a high degree of certainty. He then proceeded to lay the glasses on a shelf and explained he was going to give them a "Rest cure". A couple hours later the old fart shows up and the old doc hands him the glasses and asked that he put them on to see if it was an improvement from what he was seeing before. I about fell out of my chair when that fellow started going on and on that this is how they should have been done the first time and now they seemed just perfect. The old eye doc just gave me a subtle wink and I learned something that day they had never taught me in school. I can't tell you how many times I have seen that same scenario reenacted thru the years. What you see with your mind's eye is not always what you see with your actual eye.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/29/2005 08:07PM by D. Rob Grider.

Tom Kirkman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You're probably making a statement that proves
> itself quite often. But for me, I tend to look at
> the results and go from there. When I try
> something, I expect it to perform up to my
> expectations and if it doesn't, I chunk it and try
> something else. About 50% of what I come up with
> does what I thought it would do. The other 50%
> disappoints and is relagated to the junk pile.

Man, I wished I had a .500 batting average... Most of the stuff I come up with is crap! My ratio for this is more like 90% crap 5% good, and the other 5% ends up in my wife getting mad at me!

-- Cheers
-- James

I agree Andy. Being somewhat of an experimentalist, my first reaction to some of these perceptions...and the market researchers (excluding my wife!) is: "Show me the data". I think it's always a little fun to try and test the claims...even if the some of the manufacturers don't. lol

The case you cited in the fishing blanks, finished vs. unfinished has interested me for a while now. Quite a while ago I tested some blank material so I'll have to look up that data again. But I was able to measure a difference in damping on the order of about 18% on the same material, glossy finished vs. unfinished. The tricky part is that in either case, the damping is pretty low, so it's hard to predict the extent to which you'd feel the difference. It would probably require some kind of blind testing to prove it out. The other caveat is there was temperature dependence. Since the rod finish had a transition in it, the difference in damping between the coated and uncoated rod increased with temperature. In other words, the damping factor of the coated rod increased with temperature.

mark

Mark,
Could you tell me the procedure you used to measure damping?
Bill