Cane, glass or graphite

[flyred06]

GMREEVES,

I thought the same thing. According to Lefty Kreh it is all technique. He can cast 80+ ft of fly line just using his thumb as a rod. I have seen that man take roods apart and use just pieces of the rod to cast. So where is the sweet spot. It lays in the caster and his technigue. But that is how rod companies stay in buisness. Buy a new rod over practice and learn.

[Troutman]

Do any of you all use the common cents system when picking a rod?
You engineers would enjoy reading this. I know several people that use the system when picking out or buiding rods.
http://www.common-cents.info/caq.htm

[flyred06]

Basically my CCS is to go to my builder or flyshop and cast the rod in question. I can simply tell more by that than I can anything. Statics is simple can I use this rod for what purpose I am choosing. I spent several hours with the rod builder before buying my cane rods. Once again that is why I like cane over mass produced graphite. It is tailored somewhat to my needs. And I know the person and their desires for their work over something made by someone who simply is trying to get paid and go home or worse overseas.

[gmreeves]

If I am going to buy a rod, I usually cast it first and put various lines on it and test it at different distances.

If I am going to build a rod I have never built, I can run the various tapers through a program that will give me the stress put on the rod at each inch of the rod with a certain amount of line out and at what distance. The stresses are calculated by the line outside of the guides, the weight of the tip top, the guides, the ferrules and the line inside the guide, and the mass of the bamboo. Based on rods I have built in the past and comparing their stress charts to the one I am thinking of building, I can have a pretty good guestimate of what the action is going to be. That being said, a fast bamboo or fiberglass rod is not the equivalent of a fast graphite rod.

I have never heard of the common cents method until now and agree with a lot. A quick read looks like it is what I am already using. With time I am inherently learning how to correlate one rods action with another based on the numbers and stresses I get with my various programs.