In the world of fly fishing the line speed belongs to the “Shop Rats”. Shop Rats are guys and gals that hang around fly shops. Most work in shops or are guides or are wannabee guides. They all do a lot of fly casting and if you do a lot of anything you get better at it. Shop Rats probably comprise no more than 5% of the fly fishing fraternity, but have a huge amount of influence on what kinds of fly rods become popular. The core group of anglers hold down regular jobs and fish mostly on week ends or during vacations. A lot of them cast very well, but usually don’t get to practice nearly as much as the Rats. Another category are the rich guys who spent all of their time making money and didn’t take much time to fish until they retired. Many didn’t get much practice except talking about fly fishing over cocktails. Now they are retired and are making up for lost time. Many struggle at fishing and casting, but exert a lot of influence on rod design because of their buying power. There are probably many other categories of anglers and each might require a slightly different rod action to make them feel most comfortable. The industry tends to feel that most of the other anglers out there envy the casting skills of the Shop Rats even though they probably won’t make the sacrifices in their own careers to become as good at fly casting. This situation always poses some interesting paradoxes in rod design philosophy. How does one build a fly rod that the masses will be able to cast well and and still appeal to the Rats.
All this study in angling sociology doesn’t even consider that there are also different sizes of rivers, flies and fish. No wonder there are a myriad differing rod design theories out there. Exploring and learning about each of them is an adventure in itself. The subject keeps many of the Rats light in the pocket book and very busy in the online chat rooms…
Fishing, flyfishing, Gear, Salmon, Steelhead, Tube flies
spey rod design (‘shop rat technicians’ v. $$$$’d duffer)
SwittersB & Exploring 