Sometimes I get so angry that I could eat steak. I recently built a fly rod using an Allstar IM6 5 wt. blank. The ERN is 5.65 and the AA is 70. Not having a 5 wt. line on hand, I tried a s 6 wt. With an ERN of 5.65 I should be able to make a decent cast. I took the rod to do some bream fishing and it performed terribly with one of those tope of the line lines. I had my nephew try it and he said the same thing. Yesterday, while at a local sporting goods store I bought a 5 wt. line made in Canada for $10. The name brand is Crystal River. I also bought a reel for $9.00, the Pfleuger 1094. With this line and rod I can now put a fly in a coffee can at 50 feet. What makes me angry is all of the hype of having to use a $60 line to make good casts. It is the same thing with rods. By the way, I had one of my rod building buddies over tonight for steak and some rod building conversation.

Maybe you should try a 7 wt line ??? Was the $60 line one of those new and improved 6 1/2 wt lines



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/26/2006 10:04PM by bill boettcher.

Just for kicks, you should try weighing the first 30 feet of that expensive line. I'd be willing to bet it's way outside of AFTMA specs. I've found that to be the case with many of the more expensive fly lines.

The industry needs to sell more lines. To do that, they are producing more and more "specialty" lines. Some like them. Some don't. Whether they're really necessary or not depends on who you ask.

...........

Good idea Tom. I have a pending doctor's appointment at the hospital where I used to work. I will take the line into pathology and weigh it. The pathologists will probably think that I am ready for the home but it is worth a try. What gets my goat is that a cheap line performs very well and most guys and magazine articles tell me that I need an expensive line. Maybe I should do what Andy Dear advices, stop listening to all of the hype.

Bill,
The 6 wt. line was a $60 big name brand line WF6.

I got an Orvis trout line once. The darn thing was as hard as wire. Called them and they told me I should run it thought my hand to straighten out the pig tails Thought I was fly fishing.
I find a soft line casts a lot better.

Ellis,
as far as I am concerned, I only buy a new line when I can no more you use the former one, and I often use both sides of my DT...
Another thing, I still fish with some natural silk fly line, I know it may sound old fashioned but I am silk addicted, I like the sound it makes in the air, I like the feeling it gives you, it makes me feel "in touch" with my fly... so with this kind of line if you pay attention to it and take care of it you can use it more than 5 years...I've got some here that I have been fishing with for more than 10 years!!

Frantz

"So angry I could eat steak"... is that one of them Texas sayings or is it an Ellis-ism? Either way, it's had me chuckling for 10 minutes.

The fly world has me baffled. The only place around here that I can buy supplies (finish and thread) is a fly shop. They only deal in fly rods, and it's all the high end stuff. Winston, Thomas and Thomas, Orvis, etc. Some of these $400 blanks feel really nice, but I just don't see where they can be worth that much cash. Add a $500 reel and my head swims. Only thing I can really do for amusement is wiggle a $3000 Ramsey and wonder aloud if ceramics wouldn't have been a better choice than snakes...(The horror... the HORROR).

Think about it --- how much technology can they put into a graphite tube ??? Yet the prices keep going up. Even the 555 line from cortland is very stiff. I have an old 444 that I have used for years, as long as it keeps on going thought the guides

Just one concern I had few years ago and that has never left my mind since...
Would there be a trend to build more fragile tackle/equipment so as to keep the market alive?

I will never allow an expensive fly line to get in the way of a good day of fly fishing.

For those flyfishermen I see wearing and carrying $5000 worth of equipment, thanks for the laugh...

For Tom Kirkman, Cliff Hall, and many others who routinely patronize this forum, thank you all for teaching me to build beautiful, functional fly rods for well under a hundred bucks.

Vance
Now try to convince that person all that stuff is not needed ?? That is the hard part. People still think a fly rod should have snake guides on it. Then tell them you can build them a rod as good as a Sage and for less money ??? They look at ya funny !!

Ellis, by all means do your best to ignore the hype and just do what works for you and your fishing buddies. I agree that hype seems more rediculous in flyfishing that most other types of fishing but hype is everywhere in advertizing and gets spread by gullible enthusiasts. No doubt, a $10 line that matches a particular rod well will fish better for you than a $60 line that doesn't, assuming they are both clean and in good condition. All the stuff about taper and stiffness is mostly just personal preference. Find what works for you and use it. If you haven't tried it, pick up some ZipCast to treat your line every now and then. It makes your line cast better, and that's no hype.

I know NOTHING about ERN, AA, or fly lines. I do hear the FF's complaining abotu just abotu everything, so I have no choice is hearing how 4 weight rods can't cast 4 wt line, blah blah blah. so the rodbuilding community makes this contraption with pennies to figure out what weight line the rod will cast. Super idea.

Did anyone stop to think the line Manu's are making line ratings for rods which are not rated properly in teh first place? Maybe the 6 wt line will cast great with a 6 wt rod - not a ERNAA 6 wt, an actual improperly rated 6 wt rod.

Billy, I think that is exactly what has happened. Line manufacturers were tired of people telling them their lines won't load a rod correctly, when the rod had too much power in the first place because they were trying to win some magazine's misguided distance casting contest. So now basically nobody is manufacturing anything to spec and it's either trial and error or the CCS. I'll take the CCS, then the rod and line companies can do whatever they want and I won't care.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/27/2006 08:51AM by Steve Kartalia.

Well, if you're gonna CCS, then you might wanna CCS the line as well - this way it is still accurate. What good is CCS if the wt is not matching the line wt?

Hanneman (Mr. CCS) included a plan for building a cheap fly line scale for just that reason.

The truth is that a fly rod that has an ERN of, say, 5, will cast fine at 20-40 feet with several different line weights depending on how you like the rod to feel and respond. That is personal preference which no "system" can decide for you. It would all be a lot easier if rods came labeled with ERN and lines were manufactured to the already existing AFTMA line specs. But at least now there is an easy way to collect the data ourselves if the manufacturers won't provide it or won't stick to a standard.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/27/2006 09:05AM by Steve Kartalia.

Someone once told me their are only actually a few manufacturers making fly lines....3M (Scienfific anglers) being the largest....the rest of the stuff is made by one of these manufactuers for a certain customer.......I think Airflo makes their own stuff, and Cortland.....not sure about the rest. So what are you getting in that $10.00 box...who knows?

Incidently...I was reading R.L. Winstons website the other day and they actually tell you that their WT series is made on IM6 graphite. This blank lists for 273.00...rod is up around 500.00. So what is their cost on this item.....5.00 maybe? I'm not knockimg IM6..this is actually my favorite action of any of the high end commercial rods. How many Tiger eye's or RX6's could you build for this much money?

Joe

Talk about HYPE ???? I just hope that people like the Batson's keep reasonable prices.
That is why I don't believe in these high end stuff. Ya don't know what you are getting ???
Guess it is a name game.

Mick, It is a Texas saying. Usually it is "I am so mad I could eat chili" but I don't care that much for chili.

Billy, At a casting clinic put on by a fly fishing tackle company a rep hands me a 7 wt. rod to try out. It casts very well. Then he tells me it was because it was overlined with an 8 wt. line. Why not just call the rod an 8 wt. and be done with it. Some poor slob like me walks in the shop and buys the rod and a 7 wt. line and has trouble loading it. Then somebody tells me that I need an 8 wt. line and there I go spending money for another line. That makes me so mad that I could pick the ticks off of my dog.