My brain is getting very old. I feel a bit dense this morning. Pardon me.....but am I missing something here? I have looked at Dr. Bills fly line analyzer. One needs to build his scale I suppose. But there is a lot of data available. Is there some reason I cannot just weight the first 30' of a fly line and correlate it to his charts and guestimate what ERN it would be good for? I have a scale that will weigh either in grams/grains or ounces.....

I am thinking I could just weigh a fly lines first 30' to get a grain number and look at his chart to see what fly rod (based on ERN) that particular fly line would be suited for. My problem.....too many fly lines and no longer know their usefulness. What rod they would be good for. Would like to measure all of them and label them. After wife of 38 years lost a 4 year battle to cancer....I kind of lost it. Went to a lake in another state and howled at the moon for six months. Went down the deep rabbit hole of fly fishing gear. Bought way too much stuff....life takes me away from it for awhile.....now have a lot of stuff trying to figure out how best to make use of it all. Too many rods, rod blanks, reels.....etc

Any suggestions or opinions would be very much appreciated. Intend to give a lot of it away.

jim

Yes you can just weigh a fly line, but whatever means you have. You can then use the equation ELN = ERN as a starting place to match a line to a rod. But depending on your casting style and the distances you fish, you may find that some variation of that equation, i.e. ELN = ERN-1 or ELN = ERN+2, etc., works better for you.

Do remember that the weight required to flex the rod/blank to the prescribed distance for measurement is not the weight you would be trying to match with the fly line. You would have to weigh the fly line, then match that weight to the original AFTMA fly line number and work from there.

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Thank you Tom. Understood......and thank you very much.
jim

An easy , accurate way to weigh the first 30 feet of a fly line is to: 1. Buy a small digital scale-lots of them on Amazon. Like one that would be good for weighing epoxy proportions. 2. Get an empty spool and weigh it. 3. Carefully put the first 30 feet of line onto the spool and with the line coming off the spool horizontal (so it has least chance of putting a vertical force onto the scale) and weigh the spool with the line on it. 3. Subtract the weight of the empty spool.

Most fly rods today are heavily under-rated, allowing advertisements to claim (for example) "The most powerful 5-weight rod made!" - That's because it's really a 6 or 7 weight rod. The "right" line for the "right" rod depends on the "right" fly-caster. The best fly line for a roll-caster or a maximum 35' fly caster is not the best fly line for a double-haul 75' caster. If there is a fly-fishing club or casting class in your area you should consider joining up and test-casting different lines with your rod to see which line performs best for you.

We frequently get asked which fly line to use with a given blank model. These types of inquiries can quickly spiral into 20 minute speculation sessions filled with subjective descriptions of what we like, or how a particular blank compares to a particular production rod model etc....
One thing I find most fly anglers are unaware of are the demo line kits that many fly shops receive from the line manufacturers. These are giant wallets filled with many different line weights, tapers, lengths, and tips. Many shops will let you put a credit card on file and take a few lines to your local spot to try out. This is an awesome way to get a line that's absolutely dialed to your rod and your particular casting style. Then you just go back and buy the winning line(s), or check out more. It's a win/win for the shop and the angler.

-The Batson TEAM
BatsonEnterprises.com

Hey Jim, Where do you live? Sounds like you could use a fishing friend!!!