We are blessed with the quality of fly rods available on the market today. People spend a lot of time and effort looking for the perfect rod. However the reality is that modern rods are massively better than just a few years ago and there are few bad rods. Even the cheapest rods today are probably better than the best rods of twenty years ago. If you are struggling with your casting or fishing it is very unlikely to be the rod’s fault. Having said that short line methods put tremendous demands on a fishing rod. If any technique demands the very best rod it is Short Line Flyfishing.
The first rods for modern Short Line Flyfishing were rather soft 9 or 10 foot rods designed for Czech nymphing. As Czech nymphing was practised at short range there was little need for a fast action rod. However hooking fish at short range required a soft rod with lots of give to avoid losing fish at short range. The technique really wasn’t that demanding of the rod. the main requirement was that it was light so as not to be too heavy to hold at arms length for the duration of a long day’s fishing. Other things being equal a soft rod is lighter so rods tended to be increasingly noodle.
When French nymphing techniques developed a very different tool was required. there was still a need for a long rod for good line control. In fact fishing at greater length required even longer rods and 10″ became the absolute minimum, with rods up to 12′ not being uncommon. There was still a requirement for rods to be light as they were still being held at arms length. However the big difference was that the leader was being cast like a fly line at distances of up to 50′. That doesn’t seem like a lot by the standards of conventional fly fishing, but this is equivalent to a 000 fly line. A super light line and, of course, lighter lines are hard to cast at any distance. I find that casting a 30′ French leader is approximately equivalent to casting a 30 yard fly line. So casting a French leader at 50′ (that’s the 30 foot leader, 10 foot rod and 10 foot tippet) is quite a skill. It typically takes a double haul executed to a high level of skill. This doesn’t just place a considerable pressure on the angler, but requires a proper flycasting tool. It needs a rod cable of delivering high line speed and tight loops. That is a rod that is stiff and fast. This then has to be added to the requirements for the rod to be long and light.
The demands then go beyond this, as the typical progressive action doesn’t work well when casting such a light line relatively short distances. This is because the action is compressed, so loops need to be smaller and the whole action compressed. the best French nymphing rods are very stiff with the action confined to the very tip of the rod. This is a very demanding specification for a fly rod. In many respects these rods demand more from a fly rod designer and manufacturer than any other rod. The existing Czech nymphing rods were particularly ill suited to this application. I’ve got a few of these early rods and they are useless for modern forms of short line nymphing.
The Czechs experimented with various rods to met the needs of the new French Nymphing technique. In particular using quiver tips from specialised bait rods grafted onto the tip of conventional fly rods. I tried this myself, but it never worked very well as the tips were too soft. Eventually they teamed up with Italian rod maker Aldo Silva and developed the first true French nymphing rod; a 10′ 2 weight Modern Fly Maxia “light nymphing” rod. I was lucky to try one of the prototypes of this rod and buy one of the first production models. It was a masterpiece and is the ancestor of all modern French nymphing rods.
Unfortunately these rods weren’t very well made. That is, the blank was superb, but the fittings had a habit of falling apart. handles in particular used to come loose and had to be reattached. The Modern Fly only lasted a couple of years, as Aldo retired and the technology and manufacture of these rods was passed over to a Spanish company who marketed the rods under the Maxia name. they are still making them and have improved the quality of the fittings and expanded the range. I’ve got several of these rods and have tested prototypes for them. There are highly recommended: the best of the best.
They are very expensive in part because they use a very high module graphite to get the combination of stiffness, length and lightness that is required. One of the key features of these rods is that the blanks are shaped by centreless grinding. To the best of my knowledge that are the only commercial rod company using this technique. This allows the walls of the blank to be shaped beyond what is otherwise possible. In general the way rods are made limits the possible taper of the blank wall and creates a progressive action. Centreless grinding allows a more complex compound taper that allows these rods to have a very unique “compound action’. The action is all in the top joint, which is almost angled. This provides the perfect action for casting alight line with a long light rod. However it is a very difficult and problematic technique. the flexibility and lack of a centre can allow the blank to wobble and produce an uneven grind. I’ve had rods with this problem that cracked during casting in the early rods from Maxia, but they have now mastered this difficult technique to produce a superb product. I’ve never had a problem with modern rods, but always check the wall diameter of the blanks visually.
French nymphing rods have now become a staple of every rod company; typically in a 10′ 2 weight rod. I’ve not tried them all, but never found a rod that was as good as the Maxia rods. No doubt some of them are very good, but I’ve also had some shockers. I’ll stick with my Maxias.
Sometimes a long rod is worthwhile; especially fishing deep heavy water or super light threadlike set ups. However fishing a 12 foot (or even 11 foot ) rod is beyond all but the most experienced and skilled angler. They also start to get a bit sloppy; as even the highest modulus graphite struggles to retain the necessary stiffness; which is one of the reasons they are hard to fish with.
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