# Fly line and rod weights



## ARReflections (Jan 7, 2011)

Started out fly fishing last year and started with the party line recommendation of a 5 weight rod and reel. Finally figured that 5 wt was too much for the streams I fish and went with a 3 wt or as some would say an ultralight. 

I hear it said that a lighter wt in line/rod weight is to have a more delicate presentation as well as making that shad feel like a tuna. Ok I may exaggerate some . At any rate, as you go up to bigger species like steelehead, I hear you need a heavier weight. Why? My guess would be so you can throw heavier flys. That make sense. But what if you are throwing a fly made for 3 wt line, can you not use a fly made for the 3 weight and use a stronger leader and tippet? If you know how to land a fish could you not use a 3 weight rod with the heavier leader? My guess is someone will say the 3 weight rod would break but have they actually experienced this. What is the heaviest fish someone has landed with a light fly rod and line? Has anyone ever broken a fly line due to fish size. Not talking about the leader and tippet.

Finally, what weight would people consider ultralight for steelehead? I know most say 8/9 weight but I assume that is to be safe and be able to crank in that fish without fear of losing the fish. Trying to figure out my next fly rod/reel purchase .

Thanks in advance.


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## fallen513 (Jan 5, 2010)

5 weight can handle steel (or big hybrids or 20 lb carp) but it's a wise choice to use at least a 6 & as you said, preferably a 7/8/9. 


Using a 3 weight, you may as well be using just your reel, because the rod is doing none of the work for you. If you are fighting the fish correctly, the reels drag at that point would be the only thing preventing the fish from taking all of your line. If your line is so strong that when you tighten the drag to the point the fish can't take it... well... it didn't have much chance to begin with did it!


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## steelheader007 (Apr 8, 2004)

..lol... Seth your to funny! A 5wt on any river in low flows sure! You can hook them on a 5wt but I want to be next to you when the fish is fresh out of the lake and over 24" long! Now if you had a 12' 5wt sure you stand a great chance in landing the fish, but it all depends on the flows of the body of water and the size of the fish. My goodness you do not need anything bigger in a single handed rod than a 7wt! the rod needs to be 10' long and be of slow/med action IMHO. Now if your fishing the SR or my beloved Niagara or the Oswego your 5wt would become a 10 pc rod in the matter of seconds! To keep the fish off balance and you in control in most creeks/rivers you can go as low as a 10' 6wt! Our fishery is a catch and kill fishery we use bobbers, and lead there is no finesse in that! We are learning there are other ways in catching these pelletheads! 9wt! WTH I have thrown a 9wt on the Niagara/Oswego/SR for Kings but never for steelhead! That to me would be like FF for gills with a 7wt way to much stick!The other issue for the rods we choose around here for the most part ppl are putting shot on there lines and using bobbers! With a shorter rod of the lesser weight you woudl be a disadvantage trying to cast using the same setup! Wow i'm otu of words for now! Then of course spring will be here soon and the gravel goons/gravel rakers will be out in full force (the great fly fisherman and women of the Great Lakes)..lol...!


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## Clayton (Oct 7, 2008)

Say what you want 007, I fish an 8'9" 6 wt and absolutely _embarass_ 95% of the fish I hook, and an awful lot of those were over 30" too  You don't need more rod to fight fish, but it helps if you get in a bind with them. For the most part people use way smaller tippet than they ought to.


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## ARReflections (Jan 7, 2011)

Thanks for the comments and (sage) advice . So what I am hearing is the higher weight rod will not bend as much as a lower weight rod thus less fight in the butt end of the rod. It would also sound like it is the tippet that needs to be stronger and not the fly line (assuming correct fly weight). If anyone else has anything to add I would love to hear it but it sounds like a 10', 6 wt spey/switch rod that could potentially be change to a 5 or 7 wt would be best.


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## Flyfish Dog (Nov 6, 2007)

I Have caught trouts up to 24" on a Sage 0 Wt rod but steels have a bit more power so I wont even think of doing that on a 0wt rod. Using the correct methods to fight fish is the key and experience help tremendously. You can use anything you like but lighter fly rods will to much for majority of big fish. Its better to have the right equipment then to be asking yourself that I Should've, Could've and Would've!


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## oarfish (May 12, 2004)

My 6.5' 4 weight that I fish with in small narrow creeks like the Euclid or Arcola creeks will land a fish faster than my longer heavier rods. With the shorter rod I can apply more side pressure to turn the big steelie around.
In small waters it is mostly in the tippet how much you can horse that fish around. I personally size the line weight to the fly not to the fish in small water. I use the lightest rod I can get away with when the water is low and clear.


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## BlueDun (Feb 21, 2007)

You can catch large fish on smaller wt rods, but if you play the fish too long, it will not recover from the battle - you will kill it (even if it looks ok when you release it, it may still die). This is especially true of trout. (Too often, I see dead trout floating down the Mad River.) A heavier wt rod will help you bring it in faster and more efficiently (as others noted above) and it will be more likely to survive when you release it.


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## RonT (May 4, 2008)

Why did you start with a 5 wt.? Most likely because someone asked what you primarily targeted and recommended that set up due to the info at hand.
IMHO it is all about presentation, starting with the size of the bait (fly) being imitated for the particular natural that your target fish is feeding on.
If a larger fish than what you are targeting takes, then yes,you need more "gun".
I've never heard of anyone breaking a flyline. 
Lightest for Steelhead? Again, where are you fishing? Big water? 8/9 with a buncha' backing. If a "ditch" with out much pool length/depth for the fish to run, and you are going to kill the fish, it can be with a 5 wt. (or less).
Cheers,
R


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## RonT (May 4, 2008)

Seperate reply to address the term "gravel goons/gravel rakers" comment.
To the OP, there seems to be some stigma concerning fishing gravel.  There are those who say "do as I say, not as I do"...rationalising that they are fishing "dropbacks" but those, since they're fishing gravel are somehow "lesser than". Big me, little you! 
AR, again.."to yourself be true". What do you need out of the sport?
R


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## Andrew S. (May 22, 2010)

My approach is typically as you suggest: I decide what fly I want to throw, which then dictates what size line I'll need. This in turn dictates what fly rod weight I'll reach for. The size of the fish I expect to catch is pretty far down that list of factors, within reason and depending upon some details. This is a long post - sorry, but read on, if you wish!

For starters, am I fishing off a boat or on foot? That matters, for reasons I'll mention soon. And then, of course, within reason. Even if I could cast the fly, I'd probably not fish for tarpon with a 3 weight.

But, I think that a lot of what I read about why one should choose a big rod for bigger fish are not things I'd generally agree with. This topic comes up frequently on some of the east coast forums I frequent, and among my friends there where I lived until this season (Connecticut/Rhode Island, where we fished mostly for striped bass and bluefish). Because of all the discussions, I decided to do a bit of experimenting, so one fall day I took my four weight out on the boat after bluefish (which are as strong as any fish I've ever fished for).

You have to remember that the rod does several things during a fight, and some of these are to the fish's advantage, some are to the angler's, and some don't matter much at all if you're dealing with heavy tippets. If your talking about light tippets, then the shock absorbing factor is significant, but in my discussions with friends, about stripers and bluefish, light tippets were never an issue - we were usually fishing 20-25 lb tippets. The discussions were really about how to effectively wear out a fish quickly. With those tippet sizes, you can more or less point your rod and the fish and turn the reel handle.

The rod is a lever, with the rod butt (which you've jammed into your belly) as the fulcrum. You're putting upward force on the rod just above the fulcrum, and the fish is pulling down from the tip. And the rod is bending, so that portion of the rod that is bent and in line with the line and fish is, effectively "out of the equation", so that the lever length is basically from the rod butt to where ever the rod is bent (for the sake of simplicity, imagine that the rod is at a perfect 90 angle). I can never remember the names (type 1, 2, or 3 lever) but from the fish's perspective, this is one type of lever and from yours it is another type. From a pure pulling perspective, the fish's advantage increases as the lever length increases...which means that if you're using a heavy rod and, say, it is more or less straight from the butt to 7 feet out (assume a 9 foot rod, with the 2 feet at the tip bent, and therefore no longer relevant), the fish can exert more torque than if you're using a lighter rod that is bent more deeply (say you're using only the first 3 feet of the butt). This lever length advantage is why deep sea rods are short, why a long fly rod makes small fish fun to catch, and why you can very easily sheer a bolt in half with a long-handled wrench.

So, provided your tippet is strong enough, you can pull harder on a fish (since you progressively decrease the fish's leverage advantage) with a shorter and shorter "effective" rod length. Want to pull really hard? Just point that rod right at the fish and hand-over-hand that sucker right in...no leverage advantage for the fish at all.


But, there's another effect of the lever, and this is where it comes to the angler's advantage (and again, it now becomes one of the other lever types, but whether it's type 1, 2, or 3 I can't recall). It's the fact that when you move that rod from a lower to a higher position, or from right to left, by moving your hand in an arc that, say, moves 2 feet, that rod tip moves in a much larger arc (how far depends, of course, on how long the lever is). Let's say you're on a boat, trying to fight a fish by lift it up from basically straight down. You point that rod tip down, lift up, then reel up the slack as you lower the rod tip again, and you repeat this until the fish is up. With a very short lever, you're only lifting that fish up a bit each time. With a lightweight rod, which bends deep into the butt, you've got a short lever. A heavier rod that doesn't bend nearly so far into the butt, gives you a longer lever. So with each "pump", you lift that fish much farther up. The torque the fish can exert is greater, but there's a trade-off here between the torque advantage the fish gets with the long lever and the "lifting arc" advantage you get. And of course, with a lighter rod if you lift too high, you run a greater risk of breaking the rod because of the increasing bend you're going to put in it. You're forced to either take that risk, or only lift up so far to prevent that extreme angle.

I took my 4 weight out after bluefish (with tippets that I knew would never break), expecting to whip those fish immediately, but what I found that surprised me was that it took me longer to land them than I'd expected, simply because I had to pump the rod so many more times to collect all that line.

On the other hand, my friends and I have caught pretty large carp with four weight rods in small water with little trouble at all because no lifting was required. We have more options to turn, pull, etc. because we're on foot, and we're fighting a fish that is going away, and not "down".

So, that's my long answer. My short answer is that yes, you can most definitely fight big fish, and do it quickly and effectively, with small rods and strong tippet, provided that you won't require the "lifting lever" advantage. The idea that one would fight a large fish with a big rod, but using small tippet, and claim that this is necessary to have the "strength" to fight the fish doesn't seem to make any sense to me...in that case, the fight is about saving that tippet, not about leverage.


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## wabi (Jun 14, 2008)

fallen513 said:


> Using a 3 weight, you may as well be using just your reel,


Something like this????


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## fallen513 (Jan 5, 2010)

It all boils down to the sport of it. What do you want to get out of it? For me, I found it pretty satisfying landing a 10 lb hybrid on my Winston 5 weight, a slow action rod that bent up something fierce! It was a short battle because I let the rod do as much work as it could without breaking itself or the tippet & then used the drag to protect the rod. 


Fly line doesn't typically break because it's just plastic coated mono, usually 30 or 40 lb test I believe. Your knots are going to fail somewhere before that does.


As stated by many above, the rod is what wears the fish out. If you're targeting a species like steelhead, striped bass, etc. you should choose a middle of the road rod instead of the lightest possible so you can still have fun as you end the fight quickly. 


Long rods are where it's at!


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## fallen513 (Jan 5, 2010)

Those LOOP guys are crazy Wabi. Swedes. I really liked their older reels...


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## ARReflections (Jan 7, 2011)

Excellent responses! Andrew, thanks for your explaination. I think that articulates the suspicion rolling around my noggin! Very funny Wabi hahahah!!


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## fallen513 (Jan 5, 2010)

The most efficient setup will be the one where the rod can leverage you against the fish without breaking the tippet. Too light of tippet, you have to let the fish run, tiring it before you turn its head. Beef your tippet & with the right weight rod, you can turn the fish before its tired & maybe save its life. 

Try out a short 6 weight on steel or hybrids & you'll make your mind up quick.


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## Andrew S. (May 22, 2010)

ARReflections said:


> Excellent responses! Andrew, thanks for your explaination. I think that articulates the suspicion rolling around my noggin! Very funny Wabi hahahah!!


I started a thread about this on "StripersOnLine", in the fly fishing forum (Look for the thread titled "Bigger fish, smaller rods".) I don't think you need to sign up just to read the threads. Lots of experienced fly fishermen there, with a variety of opinions on this.

I agree with those that suggest a balance between leverage, tippet protection, and plain old "what's fun" feel.

Contrary to what it seems some thought, I was not suggesting very light rods for big fish. That said, however, for fish that are not very leader shy, like the stripers and bluefish I fished for in Connecticut, a smaller (by which I don't mean a tiny rod like a 3 or 4, but instead, say a 6 or 7) weight rod can be an effective fish fighting tool. This is because if the fish aren't leader shy, you can use something like 20-25 lb tippet (or more), so you don't really need to worry too much about the protection offered by the longer "effective" lever of heavier rod. You can use that six, bend it deep to get the leverage advantage of a shortened lever, and if necessary (i.e. the bend starts to get bad enough that you're worried for the rod) just lower the rod tip towards the fish to reduce the bend. Are you using the rod then - no, not really. But that doesn't mean you're risking the fish's life - fastest way to land a fish if you're using a line that won't break? Haul that sucker in hand over hand. It's no fun, so I don't like to go fish real heavy tippets with really light rods, but for the sake of the argument, I certainly don't think doing so is more likely to put the fish at risk. (Provided that you do just that - haul that fish in fast)


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