Joe V, if I missed it, I apologize, but did you answer this question?

"But, one can measure an overall resonant frequency of a rod blank based on its hardness and create a relative measurement that can be compared across the board with other blanks producing a useful result to use" How do you do this, Joe?

I have really enjoyed your technical insight/discipline in these discussions.

Phil E: If a rod does not store energy (from our arms/hands/etc) then release it on the cast then a 6 foot broomstick will cast as well/far as a 6 foot nicely tapered graphite rod with its lure recommended weight including the weight being cast. Right?

Everyone of the responders have very valid points and they dwell in the areas most important to them and that is commendable.

I come to the conclusion that a rod has to be built around the needs and ability of the angler, the fish and the environment the angler operates in.

A simple example, dock fishing for pan fish does not require a super tuned resonant free rod with exotic super light guides, the main requirement is that the rod have light action, be durable and withstand being bounced around the dock. A kit from any of the sponsors will fit the bill. Yeah, I know I'll get flack from that statement, it's my opinion and I will not move from that position.

The same can apply to all areas of angling, It would be unfair for me to express all the qualities and considerations of a good bass rod to a person who wants to fish for fresh water stream trout.

My point is there is no list that ranks all the aspects of building a rod in order of priorities, the list changes and the priorities are ranked in order to meet the anglers needs..

There can be many more pages of discussion but it will not change the fact that custom rod building is fulfilling the requirements of the user.

To answer the question "How important is weight?" Yes weight is important but not my first consideration.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/25/2021 04:44PM by John DeMartini.

Phil, you need to stop with the silliness about casting. I know you're a show me proof kind of guy, and if you consider seeing it for yourself as proof, simply go on YouTube and enter the words "bow and arrow fishing cast". Most of the videos are of fly fisherman using the technique, but some years back I attended two days of Bass Fishing University seminars. One of the seminars was given by Rich Tauber and he did the bow and arrow cast with a spinning rod. I tried it and couldn't develop the timing. But anyhow ..... please stop with the saying it only comes down to rod movement. Because it doesn't.

As far as a lighter rod being higher performing than a heavier one. Sure... for the rod itself. But a lighter rod is not always the higher performing rod when you put that rod to use. And personally, I only care about how the rod performs when I am using it. I've built two identical rods. One that I weighted the butt to bring the rod and reel to a particular balance point, and one that I didn't. I can assure anyone that the overall heavier rod with the weighted butt out performed the lighter rod when in use. The unweighted rod was extremely tip heavy. The weighted rod, which I added 2 3/8 oz to the butt of the rod, was not tip heavy and in use, performed at a much higher level.

I'm also with Todd on the 2 grams difference in total guide train weight not making a significant difference in the feel of a rod. Does it make a difference? Sure it does. How much of a difference it makes, I'm thinking not enough to feel. Just because you can measure something, doesn't mean you can feel it. You can't see infrared light, but you can measure it.

Oh and Todd? I think you have it backwards on the spiners versus non spine people. Seems to me that those that spine believe they build the superior rod. But I totally agree about those obsessed with the weight of their rods. They feel they build a superior rod. And with the rod in a rod rack, they probably do. But put that rod that rod to use and it could quickly prove otherwise,

OK here's where we're at , some people build with ultimate performance in mind and weight reduction is a major priority to them , some people prioritize appearance the most , some people prefer a mix of both appearance and performance and some people keep trying to figure out how other people are able to detect subtle difference in weight while they cannot.

David

When you added the weight to the butt the rod the rod did not perform better it made the rod easier to handle. The action of the rod from the reel seat to the tip never changed so the improvement came from better balance and easier handling.

I am a believer that rods on their own can't perform its the user that gets the most from a given rod, if the rod doesn't handle as expected then modifications are in order if that don't work then a replacement rod is in order.

I kinda like to think that all this fits into a "Feels Good" category..

I'm going to morph into Phil E for a minute . David , you say by adding weight to the butt of your rod it performed on a much higher level ? Proof please , you admit your timing was bad with the 'Bow & Arrow technique , well then you must attend a seminar on improving your timing then. I'm not going anywhere , I'll be right here waiting .


In all seriousness it goes directly against basic physics, it's impossible to add weight at any point on a rod including at the bottom and increase it's performance, it will always have a negative impact on efficiency . Don't confuse performance with being more comfortable with a rod. If adding weight to the butt made the rod more comfortable allowing you to feel and fish with it for a much longer time frame that's understandable but you did not increase the rods performance you just made it so it feels much better balanced & therefore more enjoyable to fish with .


Performance wise the lighter the rod the higher it will be capable of performing .

Kent has a very high opinion of Gary Loomis as I think we all do , Gary has very strong opinions on weight , he has repeatedly said weight is the # 1 enemy of rod performance and weight of any kind is never ever a positive thing . There has been physics lessons in this thread by extremely intelligent individuals and all types of information provided by knowledgeable contributors.

Many experiments that one can do to show how weight effects rod performance has been provided by Tom as well . Time to wager on how long this thread goes , it must be reaching the length of 'Spine' discussions at this point .

How the rod performs In use ........ not in a rod rack, not in the rod locker of my boat or lying on the boats deck ready to be used.

I'm not talking about the rod's resonant frequency, I'm not talking about its' stiffness to weight ratio, or any other measurable attribute of a fishing rod. I'm talking about when I put the rod in my hands and use it.

Rather than continue on I'll just say that I have a broader definition of how the word performance relates to a fishing rod. There are bench tests, and in use tests.

Since I've caught a fish with a rod that was lying on the deck of my boat, I'll go with how the rod performs in my hand. And in use, the lightest rod is not always the best performing rod.

M.D. - The decreasing mass of a fishing rod toward the tip would produce an increase in velocity if the rod was allowed to straighten out - like a bullwhip - but fishing casts are released from a bent rod and fish lines, unlike bullwhips, do not significantly decrease in mass toward the tip - with the exception of fly lines (roll casts). I'm still waiting for a demonstration of pushing a line, preferably a braid, through the guides of a fish pole and across a table or a pool of water - show doubters you CAN push on a string.

To the other Phil E. If the rod does not store energy, how does a "bow and arrow cast" work?

We must all remember and this is part of the problem that I can see confuses the OP , there is a mix of facts in this thread like ' Basic physics' and then there is a bunch of opinions and deep personal preferences that don't particularly care for those facts and it's very important to be able to distinguish between the two .


The latter is to be expected and accepted it's when strong personal preferences and belief's try to overtake indisputable and acknowledged facts that it needs to be corrected . Just because certain individuals can't tell a difference does not mean others can't or there is no differences.

Michael,

I’ll come back to your question, but it may be a couple days out. I have a bit of work to catch up on over the next 24 hours. When I get a chance I’ll elaborate more on your specific question.

Phil Ewanicki Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
"Show doubters you CAN push on a string"



Oh yeah , I bet the ladies would be really impressed with that .

Well I guess if Gary Loomis said it, that's it then. I guess some of us add weight to butts just cause we think the rod fishes better even though it really doesn't. Must be a filament of our imagination. Chris c., we've beaten this topic to death in the past.

I shouldn't have to repeat this stuff but here we go again . David said that his rod clearly performed on a much higher level when he added weight to it , the fact is when he added weight to the butt it made the rod much more balanced for him thus making it much more comfortable to fish with and he attributed that comfort to adding additional weight to the butt which was why he thought the rod performed better for him . Now as I made clear in one of my posts above , those belief's are fine and should be accepted , they're his strong preferences and beliefs but are his belief's factually accurate ? In his mind they are but factually speaking they're not .

You cannot add weight OF ANY KIND to any part of a blank and have it become more efficient, PERIOD . It goes directly against basic physics. Are we clear yet on that fact or is this ridiculousness going to continue ? On another note I mentioned Kent's name when I brought up Mr. Loomis because he has quoted him in the past and highly respects him as I do myself and many others but here's where I made a mistake , I assumed Lynn B would also realize that there isn't a person on earth who would be more perfect and know more about weight and how it relates to blank performance than Gary Loomis himself , I was wrong . Perhaps you think your buddy Mr. Baylor is more credible .

Moving along , If you and David are convinced weight improves rod performance then the answer is a resounding 'Yes' that it is indeed a figment of ones imagination. Last but not least : If you know this topic has been discussed countless times in the past it sounds like you should have mentioned that to Todd after he started this thread on this topic. I wish I didn't need to respond like this but when I'm singled out and purposely targeted in a negative way I respond in kind .

Interesting thread. I've always been interested in weight, especially as I build only ultralight rods.

I scanned through all the posts but only scanned them. A few comments.

1. I build as light as possible, in part, as an aesthetic exercise. So even if there are no additional performance gains, I just enjoy pushing the envelope on how light I can build without compromising ergonomics. Part of the enjoyment is to push the envelope by doing out-of-the-box thinking.

2. That said, lighter generally does feel better for ultralight. I think that weight really makes a difference when one is doing non-stop jigging for an entire day. (i.e. trout fishing with minijigs.) A friend was jigging all day and at the end of the day, tried my rod and was 'blown away' but how effortless it was to use.

3. However, balance also matters. A 2 oz rod that is perfectly balanced can be much easier to jig than a 1.5 oz rod that is very top-heavy. So for me, the key is to build as light as possible with perfect balance around the first finger.


Interaction with a couple of posts:

Joe, you wrote "So, you may ask, "How does additional inertia affect what I 'feel' in a rod?" I like to use the subjective 'carpet test'. FYI, shag carpet works really well for this. Start with the bare blank. Hold it like you are fishing, and as gently as possible just barely brush the tip over the top of the carpet. You will notice that blanks of similar power with different modulus materials will feel different, with the highest modulus materials (stiffest materials given their mass) will allow you to feel the most. Now, repeat the process as you add the tip-top, then the grips, then the reel seat, then the guides, then the epoxy. What you will notice is that each step will result in slightly less feel and feelings that are less sharp. What is happening as the feeling gets less sharp and more 'muddy' is that you have increased the inertia of the rod, which decreases the maximum amplitude of your signals as well as spreads the signal over a longer period of time. The idealized signal is called a delta function and is infinitely short in time and infinitely tall. A real signal has a shorter broader shape, and the more inertia the rod has the shorter and broader the peak gets."

I used to think exactly the same thing too regarding material and sensitivity. However, I no longer know WHAT to think. I've had fiberglass blanks that felt more sensitive with the carpet test than carbon fiber. However, a builder who built with both blanks assured me that in actual fishing, the carbon fiber is more sensitive by far. Then I did the same test of different types of surfaces. And sometimes, the same blanks being compared will seemingly result in opposite results depending on the surface.

Kent, you talked about the pitch of the blank. Well...I thought that too, until I recently tested some blanks and some of the cheaper thinner blanks with lower modulus actually had a higher glass-like pitch. This was true also of a store brand UL rod around $100. The blank is thin and light, but clearly not as sensitive as another high-end Japanese blank. Yet the cheaper blank has a considerably higher pitch when bounced on a hard surface.

So, Joe & Kent, my experience sometimes belies what I used to believe.

No matter what you "believe" neither you nor I can push a fishline more than a couple of inches. In a cast the rod PULLS the mono or braid or fly line until the line is released, and the line is released while the rod is still bent backward. Try delaying the release of the line until your powerful rod is completely bent forward - finished pushing the line to greater speed, as you claim. Your theory of rod power pushing the line faster predicts this cast should be a boomer. Good luck.

A couple of addendums:

1. The added weight's impact is related to the percentage of weight added.

2. Paint impacts blank performance.

For a heavier blank, paint on it probably barely is perceptible if at all perceptible. However, for a UL blank, it is definitely perceptible. There are also different thicknesses in paint. I know because I have had identical blanks bare, painted with ultrathin paint, and thicker primer+paint. With the double layered paint, it added 6% in weight and definitely was perceptible even when swinging and tapping just the bare blank. However, the same blank in a high power configuration (meaning using the same mandril) is much heavier and paint makes much less impact.

I do however also believe that paint does protect the carbon fiber from small knocks and nicks.

3. Durability of high modulus carbon fiber.

High mod CF can be remarkably tough. My sons have stepped on some of the tips and they have continued to fish well for years.

Phil - you comment about the rod 'pulling' the line and lure while it is bent backward is true. However, the rod is MORE BENT during the forward casting motion before release and it has already started to straighthen out and unload its stored power by the point of release. So while it is not fully straight, it is straighter than when it is most bent during the forward casting motion. Thus the rod releases substantive stored energy during the casting motion into propelling the lure going forward which is in turn pulling the line. (The lure, that is - pulling the line.)

When I cast I pull the rod, line, and weight/lure forward and release the line when I have pulled them forward as fast as I can. I tried your way - used the rod to pull the sinker forward halfway, stopped, and waited for the power of the rod straightening out to push the line and sinker way out there. I must say I wasn't impressed with the results, or the theory that a rod stores energy to push a weight forward.

There's no stopping and waiting for the rod to straighten. I think that in the one smooth casting motion, the rod does start to release its power towards the end of the stock right before one releases. BUT I could be wrong and you could be right indeed. I'll do some observational tests next time I'm out on the water.