[Will Shaw]

We often see the marketing blurb saying such-and-such a rod "tracks well".

Has anyone ever had a rod that tracks badly? The evidence for this would be unintended curves in the line on delivery no matter how straight your hand moves.

I once cast a rod whose blank was (intentionally) curved in an S shape (can't remember its name - Magnus had it). I cast it overhead and out to the side, in all different planes, deliberately trying to make it track badly. It didn't. It kept on throwing straight.

Me? I think the straightness or otherwise of the line is entirely down to the operator, not the kit.

What does everyone else think?

W.

[Rob Brownfield]

I am not sure how a rod tip can be out of track if the hand is in track?

However, I do believe that a blank that twists on a cast, no matter how straight a plane it tracks on, will have the potential to throw a cast off course.

Point in case, a hexagonal cane rod tracks lovely because it is very resistent to twisting on the cast. Freestone cane rods of South Africa make a point of this, he talks of self tracking (and self loading) and I have always belived in this since picking up my first cane rod.

However, I remembered reading about tracking a while back, and found the article. :

http://www.johnjuracek.com/2012/11/18/words-i-dislike-in-fly-rod-reviews/

[Hamish Young]

Has anyone ever had a rod that tracks badly? The evidence for this would be unintended curves in the line on delivery no matter how straight your hand moves.

Well maybe, yes. Many moons ago I cast (didn't own) a green heart rod that was a 'bitsa' of two rods which the owner loved but I could not get on with at all.
Essentially the top section of the rod was so utterly different in terms of 'action' over the rest of the rod that it did its own thing no matter how slowly and carefully I tried to cast it...... they were clearly mismatched elements from two very different rods so really it's maybe not a fair example to use as it wasn't a 'true' rod built as the manufacturer intended.

I once cast a rod whose blank was (intentionally) curved in an S shape (can't remember its name - Magnus had it). I cast it overhead and out to the side, in all different planes, deliberately trying to make it track badly. It didn't. It kept on throwing straight.

I remember that rod, saw it a 'loops gathering I'm sure. It was weird.

Me? I think the straightness or otherwise of the line is entirely down to the operator, not the kit.

I'd buy that, we're talking casting faults here.

H

[Will Shaw]

However, I do believe that a blank that twists on a cast, no matter how straight a plane it tracks on, will have the potential to throw a cast off course.

Yep, but that's operator error and nothing to do with the rod, and (not withstanding Hamish's faulty memory  ) I've never come across a rod that randomly fires casts off in different directions on its own.

a hexagonal cane rod tracks lovely because it is very resistent to twisting on the cast. Freestone cane rods of South Africa make a point of this, he talks of self tracking (and self loading) and I have always belived in this since picking up my first cane rod.

I don't think they track better or worse than anything else. And, yes if you twist them or move them out of plane you'll get a nice curve just like a round sectioned rod.

In fact, imagine if you had a self correcting rod that could somehow know what plane you were meaning to cast in, and kept everything straight. You'd never be able to do a curve or wiggle cast! 

However, I remembered reading about tracking a while back, and found the article. :

http://www.johnjuracek.com/2012/11/18/words-i-dislike-in-fly-rod-reviews/

Couldn't have put it better myself!

W.

[Rob Brownfield]

Yep, but that's operator error and nothing to do with the rod, and (not withstanding Hamish's faulty memory  ) I've never come across a rod that randomly fires casts off in different directions on its own.W.

Its more that as the blank "untwists", it flicks round, not in line with the rest of the blank. Its really difficult to explain in words but as the blank snaps round when the pressure is off, it "kicks". That kick has the potential to sap power or throw a wiggle in the line.....i believe

[Will Shaw]

Its more that as the blank "untwists", it flicks round, not in line with the rest of the blank. Its really difficult to explain in words but as the blank snaps round when the pressure is off, it "kicks". That kick has the potential to sap power or throw a wiggle in the line.....i believe

Excellent. I'd love to see one of those. 

[Rob Brownfield]

An exageration I know, but this photo shows a blank twisting.


Century have been doing a lot of work on this as has Harrison. They are using different weaves and so on to try and stop the twist but they are missing the point. Its the guides causing the issue, not so much the blank. The further the line is held away from the blank, the more chance it will twist. ....as can be seen in the photo

[Will Shaw]

And how is that rod twisting?

Is it

a) down to the angler

or

b) the blank miraculously deciding to twist itself despite in-plane movement from the caster

or even...

c) the fact that the angler off-set the tip section for some unknown reason. 

W.

[Rob Brownfield]

Again, far easier to show you than try and explain...but if you have a rod with stand off guides (spinning?) then try the experiment below.

If you take a typical carp rod, tie the line to something solid, and lean into it as if you are casting, ie, butt ring in line with the target/plane of the cast, and the rod well bent, you will see the tip ring can be as much as 90 degrees out of alignment.

This is because the stand off guides are trying to straighten the path of the line. Torque and all that good stuff.  I found this highly detailed image

[Will Shaw]

OK. So lets accept that a blank may twist (still due to external influences - in your case the stand-off guides emphasising small deviations in plane from the caster). The next question is, how does this affect the cast.

My contention is that it doesn't. Or if it does it's negligible.

I've just re-read this thread, and it seems to say that (if I understand it right) the mass acting on the tip (the fly line outside the rod or the lead weight in your photos) helps minimise any deflection, and so the effect is tiny.

Incidentally one of the conclusions in the thread is that the best way to minimise twist (if you can be bothered) is to make sure the spine of a blank is either spiralled, or if that's not poss, at least staggered.

Either way I still haven't come across a fly rod that casts curves all by itself.

Cheers

W.

[Magnus Angus]

There is a fairly simple way to test if a fly-rod or blank twists under a relatively low load. Fix the butt so the rod is suspended horizontal, stick a small weight of bluetac on the tip, pull the tip down a few inches and let go. I've used this pretty simple setup to look at the natural and loaded frequency of rods - it's used for the CCF test.

Ideally the tip should track straight up and down. As the oscillation decays the up and down should just get shorter - frequency stays the same (pretty much.) Thing is, typically (arguably more with cheaper rods) the tip doesn't track up and down it travels in an oval - for modern rods the oval path is slight but it's there. I have one nasty rod - the tip pretty soon travels in a circle. Casting that rod - it feels mushy - hard to get a clean loop - there is a slight tendency for loops to come off the tip at an angle even when the rod is as vertical as I can get it. (Some time since I bothered casting with it - I tested it after I tried casting and found it rather unpleasant.)

This stuff has to do with the 'spine effect' and the angle of the rings to the spine. It could also be about the spines on each section of a rod and how aligned those are. The rod builders here can say more about spines than me but it seems to me that the 'spine effect' is less pronounced on the rods I handle now that the carbon rod from 20 or more years back. Manufacturers seem to have built that in - so now a lot of factory fly rods are built to look as straight as possible, and the build ignores the preferred plane(s) of bending which custom builders seem more concerned about? (eg Sage build for straightness, Loomis spine their rods so the sometimes look a bit curved.)
Another point, typical modern fly rod have a fast action, soft tip stiff butt. Older designs including a lot of cane designs, the action was slower, under load the rod bend is more round - stiffer tip, softer butt. I wonder if spine effects are more significant when the action of the rod is slower/deeper.

Personally, some fly rods do seem to track 'true' better than others. However, in my opinion tracking is down to the caster far far more than the fly rod.

Magnus

(PS Will - test a rod you like - find the tip tracks oddly - then cast it. I bet the knowledge that your rod behaves a bit odd in a test will colour how you perceive and cast that rod for some time.)

[Magnus Angus]

Rob

The pic of Danny testing that carp rod? Are you saying before load the rings on that rod line up? It really looks to me like the top is offset so the line can't rub the blank. As Will knows a fair few good fly casters set their rods the same way.

Magnus

like this

[Ben Dixon]

I agree that the caster is responsible in the main for accuracy and tacking of the cast however, there may be some small input to tracking from the rod.

When I sat my AAPGAI Advanced Trout some years back, I used a Helios 966 TF and had the guides at 90 degrees to the reel as I often do when both fishing and casting.  When making my first casts, I was asked to repeat them with a straight line lay and I found it difficult.  The two assessors also struggled to get a die straight cast so it became obvious that it was not me.  I was asked the reasons for offsetting the guides relative to the reel which I explained, with the guides lined with the butt then small kick / curve in the line was no more.  Unfortunately I no longer have the rod to revisit this but could try with a few other rods from same series.  I'm fairly sure that Paul used to break more rods when he cast distance with the guides turned out at 90 degrees from the reel.  Why did that happen, anyone got a theory on that?

I recently cast a 6' #2 rod that recovered so badly that any sort of accuracy at any range was almost impossible, put this against another rod with similar ERN / AA (that was even a bit less shit) and I think the other rod (probably any other rod) would be more accurate.  I'd agree that the frequency / MOI comes into play with regard to accuracy.

Cheers

Ben

[Will Shaw]

Interesting stuff guys. Magnus, do you think you could pick a poor tracking rod just by casting it, or would you need to do the blue tac thing?

Ben that SL thread linked to above had a lot in it about why Paul may be breaking rods. Don't think they came to any solid conclusions.

Also, as far as I can make out from the SL thread and Magnus' comment, any minor tracking effects would happen during (unloaded) counter flex and so would only affect line layout of the rod leg? Right? ???

[Magnus Angus]

Hi Will

Yes I think I could pick out a rod with very bad 'tracking' and so could you. Inverted comas there to point out that we are talking about a poor rod, one which behaves poorly during casting. I think there is a small part to do with feel, we would feel a difference, the much more obvious part is "Bugger I can't hit shit!". Some rods just seem to me to be more accurate casting at targets, line and leader can come into the equation but use the same line and leader and....

The feel part. If a rod twists when I stop the butt and that throws a curve in the line then there is also an equal and opposite twist applied to my hand. Same if the rod twists when I load the rod, the tip then moves in a curve which we can surely see in the line but it is also twisting my hand-path. In reality the effects are likely to be small so maybe we're talking about the difference between a rod which feels good and one which feels ok - maybe a bit like the difference between the actions of keys on two different keyboards, or different scissors, or the weighting of the buttons and switches on my various cameras - some feel 'right' some feel numb or harsh or silky smooth...almost always expressed in fuzzy subjective terms so they are too easily dismissed.

Magnus