DH rods/boats and tropical fish

[JoeG]

mjyp...sorry for the confusion, it was NOT intended.

Indeed, shorter rods and big saltwater fish go together. That's why you see mostly 5 1/2 foot and 6 foot stand up as well as trolling rods for big game salt water fishing. But this is fishing with conventional tackle (and sometimes with heavy duty spinning gear).

However if you want to fly fish for big salt water fish you will need a longer rod with an action suitable for fly casting (the pool cues mentioned above just will not do it). Most big game saltwater rods (say 12 to 18 eight are 8 1/2 feet long with some 8 and many 9 footers out there. Virtually all are single handed rods which puts your hand (yes, only one hand) near the fulcrum (that's the fighting butt syuck in your belly) and gives the fish great advantage.

So when we talk about even longer rods (like 10 to 11 feet) it provides the fish even more advantage. That is unless we change the rod configuration to a two handed unit as described in my last post. Then by carefully sizing the lower and upper grips as well as optimizing the rod's length above the upper grip we would have have fly castable, two handed big fish fighting machine. Those big fish would still have more advantage over the fly fisher than the stand up fisher with a 5 1/2 foot rod...but...I believe this fly fisher would be better off than his buddy with an 8 to 9 foot single handed rod.

An interesting variation to consider for fighting really big saltwater fish would be a two handed fly rod with a bent butt. This would be great for those big guys that like to sound at boat side. Bit that is another topic.

So in the limit shorter is better. But if you want to pursue big saltwater fish with fly tackle you will have to go with a longer rod. A central question of this thread is just how should that longer rod be configured.

Hope this helps remove the confusion.