Tom wrote that the AFTMA designated only weights for lines, not rods, but I went to: www.flyfishinginformation.NET/AFTMA.html - and found a chart of numbered rods (8 wt., etc) designated to pair with specific weight lines (in grains). The rod weight corresponded precisely to the old (1960) AFTMA grain-weight ranges for fly lines.
Adding to the confusion are numerous reports that the AFTMA no longer exists and has been replaced by the American Sport Fishing Association. It's evidently impossible to determine who sets the standards for fly rods, let alone what they are. Nonetheless, every fly rod blank or fly rod I have ever seen has some identifying line-weight number on it, presumably to indicate what weight line is best suited to that blank or rod.
No doubt every fly rod blank and fly rod manufacturer decides what line weight best matches its product and marks this number on its product. No doubt there is little consistency and no objective standard for what these numbers mean. I've been a pest, but despite my best efforts nobody has revealed WHO designates the line weight number printed on every fly rod blank or rod, or HOW the designator arrives at this decision. Unless the average consumer is a lot more persistant than I, the consumer will find little objective information matching a fly rod to a fly line weight . . . and spend a bunch of money, repeatedly, doing it. Perhaps that's the whole point.

AFTMA never set a power figure that a rod must have in order to match with a specific line weight number. The line weight numbers can be quantified. Rod numbers cannot be and still can't be due to the fact that there is no across the board system to denote rod power by any quantifiable means (unless you count the CCS). No standards were ever adopted for the rods themselves, only for the lines. At the time, however, many manufacturers did try to match their rods so that a similar number line and similar number rod were "balanced" for use at average distances. Please read this for more information on how the original line weight system was intended to be used: [www.common-cents.info]

AFTMA was not replaced exactly by the ASA, but that is the latest variation of the general American fishing tackle trade industry. The fly fishing trade organization is known as AFFTA (American Fly Fishing Trade Association) and they were launched some time around 1987.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/26/2010 05:59PM by Tom Kirkman.