The Rodfather Lineup & Fly Rod Swing Weight 22May22

Many know I'm interested in objective measurements of things to aide performance prediction. For fly rods this includes measuring in order to assemble optimal systems of rods, reels and lines. Plus, a friend has asked that I review the entire Rodfather line of custom fly rods in order that he needn't read about each one - and to get some comparisons. This post is about both of these things. Here are my 15 Rodfather rods, organized largely by line weight from lowest on the left to highest going right. The last two on far right are specialty weapons, a Euro nymphing rod and a two-handed micro-spey.

My entire Rodfather lineup (some rods have been sold or given as gifts) are shown below with their key attributes. This lineup includes rods for line weights from #1 to #9 as well as the two specialty rods. The measures I've found most useful for understanding a rod's application and performance are its Effective Rod Number (ERN), its Action Angle (AA), its Weight, and its Swing Weight. The ERN is the true weight of line which the rod can most effectively throw (given a strong, properly loaded, cast). The Action Angle is the angle struck by the rod tip top at 1/3 (of length) deflection and is indicative of its "action" such as Med Fast, Fast, Very Fast, etc.. Weight is as simple as that (shown below without fighting butt if that's removable).

Mostly new to this blog, but vital, is (in this case) a relative measure called Swing Weight... by this I mean I measure the "swing weights" of my rods using a repeatable process, but can only use the measure in comparing them, as it means little in an absolute sense. To measure this I simply place the rod on my scale on top of a small fulcrum, exactly in the middle of the handle, and carefully hold the rod at its very end, leveling it ~ I then read the scale in ounces. This measurement is representative of what we'd feel as the swing weight of a rod when casting it. The higher the swing weight the "heavier" it will feel in one's hand and the more energy it will take to make an optimal cast. I also like to "normalize" this measure by dividing Swing Weight by ERN; I find rods with Swing Weight Normalized values above 2.2 to require extra effort to cast and those below 1.8 to be more comfortable. This is all a bit relative to the weight of line being cast, heavier weight lines & rods will naturally require more power. I noticed this most on full days of casting on the water.

I also "normalize" other values to build another measure I call the Power To Weight ratio ~ this is the ERN of the rod divided by its true weight. It is kind of a "bang for your buck" measure. I find rods with P/W ratio lower than 1 a bit hard to deliver the line and ones with over 1.5 are stout and very powerful for their weight. Finally as to my impressions of my quiver of numbers, There is Fast rod action I prefer, it is in the middle ~ I can deal better with my Med Fast rods more easily than the purer tip action Very Fast rods. These things are color coded in the chart. Therefore, my "best" rod is the RFT5 based on an Epic 590 Graphene blank ~ I can "feel" it is so. The SB1, Brookie, and All Blacks have swing weights a smidge high for what they deliver. The others are great but some have an aspect for which I make an accommodation.

If you are wondering how the manufactured rods I own stack up in these measures, here it is. I still have a 1wt Sage, a 3wt GLoomis, a 4wt Winston, and a 5wt Sage. Compared to Rodfather rods they are generally lighter, with smaller handles (my hands are a bit bigger), no fighting butts, fine hardware, righteous line weight matching, hover around a 1.5 power/weight ratio and a 2 on normalized swing weight. They are very competent, much more expensive, not nearly as cool looking, and don't feel as sweet in my hand.