I frequently practice casting at a nearby schoolyard. I have two newly acquired fly rods intended for a trip to the trout rivers of northern California. Usually I measure casting distances casually, by pacing; this time I measured every maximum cast with a tape measure. (Maximum distances, including leaders and yarn.) There was a trailing breeze, which added a few feet to most casts. I tested 4- and 5-weight lines on these new and old rods: fiberglass Fenwick FF75, 7 1/2' for 5-weight lines: DT4F: 79 feet; WF4F: 80 feet; WF5F: 81 feet graphite Dan Craft 7 1/2' 4-weight: DT4F: 79 1/2 feet Scott SAS 8' 4-weight: DT4F: 88 feet; WF4F: 80 feet (no breeze); WF5F: 80 feet Scott G series 8' 3" 4-weight: DT4F: 74 feet; WF4F: 84 feet Cabela/Gary Borger 8' 3" 3/4 weight: DT4F: 78 feet (no breeze); WF4F: 81 feet (breeze) J. Kennedy Fisher classic graphite 8 1/2' 4/5-weight: DT4F: 79 feet; WF4F: 81 feet Hook & Hackle 8 1/2' 4-weight: WF4F: 82 feet; WF5F: 81 feet Fisher M40 (higher modulous than classic) 8 1/2' 5/6-weight: DT4F: 77 feet; WF5F: 82 feet The conclusions to be drawn are obvious, although they go against conventional wisdom: Rod material, rod length, line weight and line configuration made surprisingly little difference. Neither did rod speed. These rods range between medium-slow and medium-fast. Finally, maximum distance itself is of limited importance for these rods, which will mostly be used at actual fishing distances half these maximum distances, or less.
Trailing wind and your ablitiy Wayne... would be more interested in seeing how they did into the wind...
Cool experiment Nooksack. I 've car-doored or otherwise snapped 6-8 inches off the top of a couple cheap 8.5 foot rods. I've put new guides as close to where the snap is and first snake guide is not, where the glass or graphite still looks healthy, sometimes hacksawing the snake guide off. Consequently they are now 7 foot something rods, and they cast about the same as the longer rod. Certainly they feel as though they cast about as well, though I seldom bomb out 70+ feet of line to check. I generally move kayak + self closer, on account of long casts in a stand-up-kayak mean a lot of weight shifts and false casts and well false casting ain't all it's cracked up to be... I was messing round with a hollow foam noodle in the back yard, 5 foot, with some parachute cord in the middle. I could cast that cord about 30 feet, enough to almost lasso the boy...You need like a cricket bowler's straight arm action though, and a passable double haul, and the timing is way slow. Man are they light though...shudders a little in the wind and forward stroke, speed wobbles I guess. You gotta watch the foam noodle in the sun though, the air cells degenerate and the whole thing can fuzz and the old ones get soggy if wet. The neighborhood cat too, that little s*&t likes to sharpen his claws on whatever foam toy (noodle, nerf swords, nerf battle axe, nerf ball) is left out overnight (some mornings look like the toys have been fed into a woodchipper). The good thing is the car door won't botch the noodle and they are like $5. I guess if I was, as they say on the Batchelor, to take it to the next level, I'd have to try with some real line, maybe some airflo, and get a feel for handlining, which is always fun with a solid fish anyways...
I also like your experiment. The same could be said about fly patterns. Much of the time, a dozen different flies will each yield the same result. The variety accomodates the opinions (and buying habits) of twelve different anglers.
What good is distance if you are fishing Skinny water. I can almost see the distance thing if you are on a lake. But most of my lake fishing is trolling or when I cast out it was to risers close to the boat. Besides with that much line out it is hard to control on the water.
I agree that most of your fishing is happening in the <40ft range. However, I don't discount the importance of distance casting; if you improve your casting to the point that you can cast 70' or 80' chances are that your overall technique is pretty damn good. Which is going to improve your accuracy. Good job with the experiment and nice casting. IMO though a tailwind isn't necessarily a good thing when it comes to distance; a tailwind is just a headwind for your back-cast.
A fine report. You did us all a great service. But I don't cast particularly well-pretty badly actually-so a long rod, for me, hides a multitude of sins.
