Matching reel and line/rod weights. What can one get away wi

I am still baffled by the whole line/rod/reel weight thing. I have a 7 weight Hardy JLH Golden reel winging its way towards me from England to use on my old Fenwick 7 weight glass fibre rod. I have also decided to look for a cheap multi-piece travel rod to allow me to fish when hiking, and it would be nice if I could use the same reel. So, what is the lightest rod I could get away with using the Hardy reel on? I know one has to match line weight and rod weight, but does one absolutely have to match the reel to the rod and line? Since everyone seems to say that 4, 5 and 6 weight rods are right for trout, I was thinking that maybe I could get a 5 weight rod but only if
I can use the 7 weight reel on it.

Dan (who is beginning to think about making a trip to Sacramento just to talk to Bill Kiene in person.)

read minimal parts in high school. you're right wolf, a classic. i'll have to find a copy in the stacks and read in its entirety.... hopefully after i finish my latest read... r.w. mcfarlane's - a stillness in the pines: the ecology of the red-cockaded woodpecker

wally

Hey, I just read that book myself!! I'm happy to say that I now can identify a C. Pipens from an Anopholes on sight, which in these parts is much more than just a party trick. In fact, after getting chomped while laying in bed the other night, my definitive ID that the mossie was <not> an Anopholes enabled me to get some sleep, and has left me with considerably less anxiety about my current flu.

Great book, for the layman.

Good idea, but where the hell are we going to find an entomologist.

I don't think it really matters where the flight originates. An infected mosquito leaving an airplane in the US or Canada has a pretty low chance of surving to transmit malaria. It could happen, but even if it did, a single case will unlikley lead to an epidemic as malaria gets diagnosed and treated fairly promptly. There have been about 20 cases of locally aquired malaria in the US since 1986, all have been quickly identified and dealt with. The public health infrastructure is pretty good. It is probably much better to respond where necessary, than to needlessly treat every aircraft with insecticides.

The Florida cases were considered to be the result of "extended transmission from a single infected person".
(http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/PDF/wk/mm5238.pdf ) That means to me that it was local mosquitoes that aquired malaria and tranmsitted it. Spraying airplanes with insecticides would have done nothing to prevent an infected person from bringing the parasite in and infecting local mosquitoes.

There is no mosquito transmission of malaria in Canada at present. All cases are imported in humans. Malarai has been transmitted in Canada in the past.
An outbreak occurred in Ottawa in the 1800's. It was caused by an influx of infected British military personnel who came from India.

There is a lot known about malaria. I doubt new hosts will emerge, and the vector species are well known, including the ones in the US.

Come, come now, "Choose any rod, reel, and line combination." That was just too delicious a setup to let it slip by without comment -- ya gotta admit that one. Just one little admission -- it won't hurt that much -- I promise.

I was thinking Thursday

jh

Of course it would be silly to use a hopelessly overweight reel on any rod, but that was not the question. You could still fish with such a combination, ( assuming you can even get such a reel attached to the reel seat, which is unlikely!).

Within "normal" limits, it does not matter which reel you use, or whether you use one at all.

Your experiment might well result in the participants deciding that they were using different rods. It is however entirely subjective, and dependent on a number of factors.

Most problems with reels, at least in regard to the perceived weight, arise because they are incorrectly attached to the rod, and thus farther away from the rod hand than they should be.

You can test this quite easily. The further away from the reel you grip your rod, the more "weight" you will perceive in use.

The closer your hand is to the reel, ( and assuming you do not continuously allow your wrist to "break" uncontrollably), the less
"weight" you perceive. Even fairly large weight differences ( up to several ounces), make little or no difference to the "balance" of the gear, although of course the actual weight may indeed be greater.
"Balance" has in any case nothing at all to do with the actual weight of any given set of equipment, but whether or not such equipment is indeed compatible per se, for the task it is being expected to accomplish.

In the majority of cases, the lightest reel suitable for the task at hand is the best choice. Although if you need a reel with a lot of backing capacity for instance, then you must perforce choose a larger, and therefore heavier reel to start with.

Lastly, the ONLY fly-fishing equipment which is built to a set of standard specifications, is the fly-line itself. The AFTM system specifies these. No other tackle, rods, reels, or anything else, is built to such specifications, and the "numbers" on such equipment are merely abitrary recommendations from the manufacturers. There is actually no such thing as a "standard" #8 reel for instance. Nor for that matter a "standard" #8 rod!

All these numbers just confuse people anyway.

About 90% who were treated with clotting factor were infected. Treatment wasn't all that good in the early '80s when this was going down, so most of them died.

I had a friend with hemophilia in Baltimore. I assumed he was dead until I bumped into him in the early '90s. He was positive, but alive and ambulatory.

Simple answer to a simple question -- it'll be suitable for a 9' - 6 wt. no problem.. Most Hardy reels tend to be a bit optimistic on their line rating so using a #7 on a six weight would be quite typical.

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Since my total gear at this point is one (30 year old and paid for IIRC, my mother) $25 rod and one (not here yet and cost well under $100) Hardy reel,
I think I have the urge to just accumulate gear reasonably under control. My initial post in fact, at least on this subject, was in the hopes of being able to use one reel on two rods.

However, I do take your point, which is, if I have understood you correctly, that the key point is to get out and fish. I am working on that part of the plan right now.

Cheers - Dan

There's a quaint and, IMO, effete tendency among flyfishers to suppose

origin of the flight (don't need to treat if the flight comes from Europe), time of year (few tropical Anopheles will survive very long during the winter in the northern US and Canada), and infected mosquitos really aren't the way the disease moves around.

Fact is, humans as reservoirs are probably more responsible for moving the disease around than infected mosquitos. It can happen with mosquitoes, but is far more likely to happen with people. Canada has several hundred introduced cases of malaria every year, compared to 0 locally transmitted cases. The US now shows the same pattern, with a a few locally transmitted cases of malaria in some areas, but most cases being imported through infected humans.

Tim Lysyk timlysyk at telus dot net

That would be Saturday, right?

Thanks, Peter. And if it is not trespassing on your patience, perhaps you could answer another. If a manufacturer says a rod is a 5/6 weight, does that mean it lies between the two weights or does it refer to a various kinds of lines?

'The song drifted like smoke. We rode toward the sunset, its boiling rivers pouring over the embroidered napkins of the peasants' fields. The silence turned rosy. The earth lay like a cat's back, covered with a thick, gleaming coat of grain. The mud hamlet of Kletokov crouched on a little hill. Beyond the pass, the vision of deadly, craggly Brody awaited us. But in Klekotov a loud shot exploded in our faces. Two Polish soldiers peered ffrom behind a hut. Their horses were tied to a post. A light enemy battery came riding up the hill. Bullets unfurled like string along the road.
"Run for it !" Afonka yelled.
And we fled.'

The Road to Brody, Red Cavalry stories

SO, doesn't that sound like "the sun is settin' like molasses in the sky ?"

Not that he ever mentioned molasses.

Thanks for the simple answer. I was hoping there was one.

I hope you feel better.

While we're on that, there's a terrific book I bought in Scotland :
George Hendry, "Midges in Scotland" about the way these pesky no-see-ums have affected the entire history of the Highlands. Anyone who has ever fished there in the summer will realize how important they are. They are very, very sensitive to light levels. Above 260 W/m2 sunlight suppresses them. Biting activity peaks at 100 to 130 W/m2 (that two means squared)

Of condiderable interest and use to fisherfolk. Published by the Mercat
Press of Edinburgh.

Well, you're doing so well on your own, you don't really need my help, but in the spirit of helping things along, how's this . . .

"Beyond providing a rough, and relative, guide to line holding capacity (bigger numbers mean larger size), the weight designations on reels mean absolutely nothing. A lot of people will prate about balancing a reel and rod, but this too is nonsense. This is easy to demonstrate. Choose any rod, reel, and line combination. Practice casting for a few minutes with say, ten feet of line out, paying close attention to how it feels. Then, do the same with thirty feet of line out. If the idiocy of notions about balance is not apparent at the end of half an hour, take up oil painting......it is much more amenable sagacious pronouncements based on specious "reasoning"."

I just couldn't help thinking about an SPL 0 wt. and Tibor Gulfstream after reading this passage.

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If you buy a 9' #5 line 4 piece fly rod it will be OK with your reel. The
JLH is a very light series.

I am about half crazy with this cold and sinus crap. I have been off for almost a week and I think I am headed to the doctor for some drugs.

Damn, I blew it again.

Another niggling factor is that the larger the reel the greater the chance that you'll periodically snag your line on it.

Yes, I have. It is dated, but is excellent. I don't have my copy at home (for some stupid reason I left it in my office), but there is one passage that describes his fascination with insects and microbes. I used to read to my class it as part of my opening lecture when I taught med-vet entomology, sort of to explain my bizarre interest in this area.

Tim Lysyk timlysyk at telus dot net

You mean that those who told me that 90 percent of the sport is the acquisition of things are wrong? And I've enjoyed it so much more since my closet has been filling up.

With due respect to my esteemed colleagues, Wolfie and Mike (welcome back, BTW), would either of you gentlemen care to fish with a Tibor
Gulfstream on the end of an SPL 0 wt.? (Ignoring in your case Wolfie, were you to be the owner, that this combination would have at least doubled your net worth -- which, of course, would result in an automatic and emphatic "Yes" from your quarter.) The size of reels do matter -- it's just a question of degree.

Here's a thought experiment for the both of you. Gather a group of anglers with varying degrees of experience and ask them to participate in a blindfold test of five 9' - 4 wt. rods of different brands. All rods will be cast with 30' of the same line. However, we actually give them the same rod and line only equipped with reels of different weights and sizes. Do you think that would be sufficient difference to make at least some of them believe they are actually casting different rods? I do.

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I was told by one of the snobbiest fly shops in town once that you should " buy the best line money can buy, buy the best rod you can afford, and , buy whatever reel you can with the money you have left". I promptly ignored that advice and went straight to gear whoredom.

That's a shame, I wasn't taking this seriously at all, neither should you.

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I assume that it was the third part of the advice that you ignored.

He built a very famous tower.