Ep 148: Fly Rod Design and Choosing the Right Rod, with Howard Croston
Howard Croston is a full-time fly rod designer for the world-famous brands, Hardy and Greys and also the England World Team Captain. In this episode, we talk about competition fly fishing, what he does day-to-day as a rod designer, how high-end rods and reels differ from low-end rods and reels, how different rods require different designs, and some considerations for material, length, and action when buying a new fly rod.
Instagram: @howard_croston_fly_fisher_
Facebook: /Howard Croston Fly Fishing
Hardy: link
Greys: link
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Katie
You're listening to the Fish Untamed podcast, your home for fly fishing the backcountry. This is episode 148 with Howard Croston on fly rod design and choosing the right rod. Well, I start every episode by getting a background on my guests and how they got into the outdoors and specifically into fly fishing. I saw in your bio that you started at a very young age, so I'd love to hear how you got introduced to fly fishing and how you've come to where you are now.
Howard
Yeah, so I mean, really for me, I started, it was my father and my uncle got me into it. When I was really young, I had a bad spell and ended up in the hospital. And the doctor at the time basically said, "Oh, you need to get out into the fresh air and the countryside and all that kind of stuff." So my parents actually bought a place up in the English Lake District, like basically out in the sticks. And it just so happened that it was about 15 yards away from a river that was full of trout. So I was quite lucky, I was fortunate. I spent like every weekend, every holiday, for God knows how long, right next to the river. So I started fishing pretty quickly, really just based on that.
Katie
Did you start with fly fishing or did you start with traditional gear or conventional gear first?
Howard
Yeah, so I started with conventional gear really, and all sorts of nefarious activities with bait and worms and all sorts of things. Some of which I shouldn't probably have been doing at the time. But I can actually remember when I turned to completely being a fly angler. What actually happened was I was doing a little bit of fly fishing as well. I was dabbling. My uncle was a fly fisherman, but my dad was a gear fisherman. So I was dabbling with both. And basically one day I was fishing with worms something. And I can remember all the fish going berserk all of a sudden on the surface. And I couldn't catch them with worms. So I ended up running back and grabbing a fly rod and running back down and catching a load of fish off the surface with a fly rod. And that was it really. I sort of, from that actually happening, I don't think I ever really went back to the, went back to the bait rod. So that was really the, that was the turning point.
Katie
A lot of people say that fly fishing is the harder way to go about fishing, but I think that sometimes it's not. And what you just described is one of those times. There are certain times where it would be much harder to catch fish on conventional gear because they're just not eating what you can present with that kind of equipment. So while I agree that fly fishing is kind of the more artful and more difficult way to catch a fish, it's not always the case.
Howard
No, definitely. I mean, ultimately, you've got to give them what they want. And sometimes they don't want to eat worms, you know, it's the just, you know, they're going to eat whatever's best or most abundant or easiest to get or, you know, whatever at the time, sometimes flies the way to go.
Katie
And I saw that you got into tournament fishing or competition fishing at some point. How did you make that transition?
Howard
Yeah, so I mean, really, I started off tournament casting, that was the first thing we used to obviously I'm based in the UK, we had an awful lot of casting competitions up until down the country and I was about, I don't know, I'd be about 11 or 12 and my dad sort of pushed me into it, said "Oh, give it a go" and I had a go and I came second. I didn't even hang around because I didn't think I was going to do any good but I came second and I got like a prize or a trophy through the post and that really sort of triggered me to think "Alright, well hang on a minute, if I practice I could maybe get better at So I basically practiced the whole winter. The competition I'd entered was in the August. I practiced the whole winter and the following August, I went to the same, it was like a big country show, an outdoor show. I went to the same one, I competed there again in, it was like six categories. So I competed in all six categories in the under 18s. So I would have been about 12 or 13. and I ended up winning all six, completely unexpectedly. So then after that, me dad actually got me some professional casting lessons 'cause I've been more or less self-taught at that point. And I started touring really around the country and I went all over the place. And ultimately I ended up, God, it's in the late 90s now, which is frightening to think how long ago that is. I ended up in the world championships in Slovakia.
Katie
What goes into a casting competition?
Howard
Oh, it depends. There's different levels of it. When I first started out, it was all what they used to call the skeesh events, which were events with actual fishing equipment. So gear that you could fish with. And I did a loads of those, but when I went and finally went to the world championships for casting, that was with basically it's, it's like a throwing sport. It's not really, you don't use gear that you could fish with. Um, the like effectively the distance rods are almost like a spinning rod blank. uh... cast a really heavy uh... t-40 shooting head uh... on attached to a very thin running line it's it's a throw in sport more than fly caster as most people would know it
Katie
and what do you get judged on?
Howard
uh... distance and accuracy distance and accuracy and there's loads of combination events as well you've got some which are uh... just pure accuracy then you've got distance events and you've got two handed distance and there's also a lot of conventional uh... casting competitions as well in that but I used to just do the fly
Katie
Is there any sort of form considered, or is it simply getting the flyer, whatever it is you're casting, to the proper location or the farthest location? Could you be really ugly about it and still win?
Howard
Yeah, basically.
Katie
Okay.
Howard
It's a throwing sport, so provided you throw within the rules, for want of a better description, it's all good. So things like, one of the main rules for the distance was that you can't, what they call, lay on. So that basically means your fly line must remain aerialized. You can't land it on the grass behind you to get more traction. Okay. So it has to be an airborne cast, your presentation cast.
Katie
So you can't water load it in the yard.
Howard
Yeah, you've got to land it in like a court as well. So you have judges all over the place and wind speed meters and all sorts.
Katie
Okay.
Howard
But to be honest, I only did, I did one world, didn't do great, didn't like the fact I had give up all my fishing for a year to practice. So I abandoned that and started competition fishing instead.
Katie
Yeah, and so, sorry I cut you off earlier wanting to know more about the casting tournaments, but tell me about the competition fishing once you actually got back to the fishing side of things.
Howard
Yeah, so the fishing side of things, I came away from doing that Worlds in like '97 I think it was, and in '98 I just signed up for an England qualifier on the river. You know, I was a river angler predominantly, so I thought I'll enter it and give it a go, see what it's all about. So I went and there was about, back then there was a lot of people fishing and there was about 65, 66 people in it and I ended up winning it unexpectedly again and that put me into my first England National Final to try and get in the England Rivers team and I came 6th, so just outside of the team, 6th or 7th, one place out and then I went and fished it again the year after and qualified and got my first England cap so Yeah, I just sort of fell into it, but when I got into it, I sort of loved it and I've carried on ever since, really.
Katie
What did you love about it?
Howard
I think for me, competition fishing, and it's got its critics like anything else, for me, it's the only kind of fly fishing, and I've done a lot of fly fishing all over the world for lots of different things, where one 20 centimeter fish in incredibly difficult conditions give you the same adrenaline rush as a 24-inch fish in New Zealand. It's that kind of, for me, it's all down to whatever the specific challenge is. The challenge is catching a lot of fish. I get the same amount of adrenaline and buzz as I do catching a handful of really small fish in incredibly difficult conditions. That's the thing that's always kept me going back, I think.
Katie
That's a really interesting point. And I've talked to a couple of competition anglers, and I haven't heard that specific explanation. But that puts it into perspective in a way that I can understand. Because otherwise, people kind of-- they keep wanting to catch the next biggest thing. And eventually, you kind of run out of either fish that are getting bigger or money to go do those things, unless you have them in your own backyard. So I can kind of understand that. It's like a new way to add the same excitement over something, just by changing the stipulations or the format of how you're going about it. The same way that someone might try catch a specific species that's really rare even if it's not a big species just like add some level of challenge.
Howard
Yeah it doesn't and the other thing as well is I mean for me in particular the you know you get to you get to travel so much with competition fishing you learn so many different things you know I've been exposed to all these like different fisheries, different countries, different ways of approaching things so it is for me I think it's almost unmatched as a You know, I think it's similar if you look at anything, even if you look at like the Turpin tournaments down in the Florida Keys, you know, a good friend of mine, Andy Mill, who I've been very lucky enough to fish with many times for Turpin, you know, he became partly such a good Turpin angler because he's, you know, he's fished in an awful lot of tournaments, you know, and he's dedicating himself to that.
Katie
Yeah.
Howard
I think it just really pushes you forward as an angler.
Katie
What is the format of the competition? Are they all different or are they all set up the same way in terms of what you need to do to win? Like are some of them numbers based or some of them size based or anything like that?
Howard
No, they're all pretty much so that the biggest competitions that we fish in are the World and European Championships, mainly the World Championships. And those are all what's called a FIPS-Mouche sanctioned event. That's the governing body. And pretty much the rules are about the same. So we fish for five days over five different venues. Each day we fish for between 3 and 4 hours. The home nation will set a minimum size and your fish all have to be over that minimum size whatever it happens to be. It goes off aggregate length so all of your fish are measured and the length is all added up. Then obviously the person with the most points they win the individual group. If you win your group you only get one point. your last you get 25 points or however many other people you're competing against and at the end of the five days the winner is the person with effectively with the least number of points. But dependent on where that competition is, I mean the year I was fortunate enough to win it in 2019 I think I won it with 47 fish in five days which is not a huge amount, but equally in one of the world championships it was won with six fish over five days. So it can be anything. It can be huge numbers or it can be very few fish.
Katie
Now how do you submit your fish? Do you keep them somewhere? Is there like an official measuring that you just keep track of? Like how do you keep all those fish?
Howard
Yeah, so basically you have a... every angler has a judge with them.
Katie
Okay.
Howard
He's a controller. He measures the fish and releases them. He's there to make sure you follow the rules, make sure your fish are legally caught, And also to ensure that anything you're doing does not cause harm to the fish you catch. So they're really stringent on that. If you injure a fish in some way or it dies on you, you can be penalized, you can lose your score up to that point. He's there to make sure when you're bringing the fish back to be measured that you actually keep it in the water in the net. That's now a rule so you can't lift the net out the water. So, you know, some people hate on competition fishing, But the reality is, is that the fish caught in a lot of these competitions are treated far better than a lot of pleasure anglers, you know? So, yeah, you've got to be really careful about that.
Katie
So is it an individual sport? Because I hear things like Team USA, you know, Team USA and fly fishing. So it sounds like there are teams, but it's also an individual sport when you're out there.
Howard
Yeah, I mean, it's a team and individual event. So you have first, second and third in individuals and you have first, second and third in teams.
Katie
Okay.
Howard
So, yeah, it's, you know, the way to look at it is that the top teams, the teams that always end up first, second or third nearly always have the individual podium places as well. It's very rare that the individual podium is made by somebody who isn't up there as a team winner as well. I've done it both ways. I've, we did win it as a team one year and I won it as an individual one year. So, um, the best teams generally, you know, also produce the best individual results.
Katie
Is there a handful of countries that tend to do well, like that are just known as being like the, the top several teams each year?
Howard
Yeah, basically it's, um, France, Spain, and the Czech Republic. There's no, generally speaking between France and Spain a lot of the time. They're probably the two most competitive countries. The US are doing a lot, lot better now. Over the last 10 years, they've improved massively. So they're pushing a lot of times for medals and a few other countries. Czech are always there or thereabouts. But a lot of these countries have got a real ingrained competition and scene at home, and it's very difficult to qualify for their national teams.
Katie
Do you know what it is besides that? Or is it just that? Because I don't think of France and Spain as being, like outside of competition, I don't think of them as being like super big fly fishing focused countries that you would like go to to go fishing. And, you know, you go there and it's just like everybody's fishing. So there's got to be something that's kind of separate that's really propelling them.
Howard
Yeah. So I've got a really good friend out of the French team called Gregoire. You know, he comes over to England and fishes. I've been over there to fish with him. And I asked him, I said, you know, what makes you guys so good? And he said, oh, you know, we've got we have got a quite a vibrant competition scene. We fish a lot of competitions. He said, but where he lives within about an hour and a half to two hours driving of a radius from his his house, he can fish pretty much everything from like a high altitude alpine stream, cold water, carrying a bit of glacial melt for small fish right the way through to a lowland crystal clear spring fed, you know, placid surface that's got big fish and the really spooky. So one of his arguments is, is that they have got, they've got such a depth of, um, if you're like venues of varying challenge, they can become very adapt to lots of different methods and they fish their competitions across a lot of those different venues. So you've got to be really well rounded. You're That's not quite the same in Spain, but it's similar. They have got a lot of competition anglers in Spain.
Katie
In terms of the location at each venue, are you assigned a run that is yours and it's just you hope you get something good? Or how do they divvy that up?
Howard
Yeah, so basically on the rivers you get what's called a beat. And the beat has to be a minimum of 125 meters, although I think some countries have a problem with using a tape measure because sometimes they're a lot shorter and it can be any length. The rules, the actual FIPS Moose rules stipulate that every angler should be given a fair and equal chance. So if you have 125 meters, i.e. the minimum length, it's a fairly safe assumption that it's quite good water. If you get given 7-800 meters you can assume that it's got a much lower fish density.
Katie
Oh, OK.
Howard
Because they're giving you a lot more water. But it doesn't always work like that. That's how it's supposed to work. But sometimes it's a little bit down to more chance, because a river's a river at the end of the day. It's not all equitable.
Katie
I'm sure. I mean, the flow itself could change whether the water is good or bad. If the flow is really low and you've got two inches of water and you're stretched, then you might be out of luck. But then the water comes up and suddenly you've amazing water that just didn't exist you know.
Howard
Oh yeah it happens, it happens. I fished Europeans in Slovenia a long time ago and caught 15 fish which I was really happy with and the day after the Frenchman caught 58 at the same place the only difference was there was three and a half feet of water came off the height between me fishing it and him so they actually turned the water flow off at a dam up the river to do some work it was nothing to do with the competition just a pure coincidence. They shut the water down and he had at it.
Katie
Well, moving on from competition, I want to hear how you then transitioned to what you're doing now as a rod designer and I definitely want to dive into a little bit of the actual rod design process and what that job entails. So maybe just walk me through how you got to this point now.
Howard
Yeah, so basically I used to work in fish and tackle retail. I worked for a big UK retail, one of the biggest in the country. And I moved, I actually went to Hardee's 20, I think it's 23 years ago now. And I was just the, I was a shop manager. So I just basically ran the retail operation at the factory. And I did that for about 12 months, but obviously I'd done a lot of tournament casting before that. So I was, I was quite well known as a caster and a little bit less so as an angler, but you know, I actually knew the guy at Hardee's, Andy Murray, who was the, he was basically the product development manager. He was actually the international sales manager as well but he also did the product development. And I started working there and after about 12 months they sort of decided that they needed somebody to focus on the product while Andy sort of focused on his sales role. So I got moved out of the retail part into basically the development part and back then we used to have a division called HAC or Hardy Advanced Composites that was effectively anything made out of carbon fiber so although they made all of the blanks and the rods etc for the for the Hardy brand they also did a lot of military work so they were making rocket launchers and radio telemetry aerials for special forces all sorts of stuff. So basically When I went into product development, I spent some time in the learned about the rod building side of it. Um, and then over a period of about, I don't know, six or seven years, I went from sort of product, product development assistant, even though I wasn't sort of reporting to anybody to up to product development manager. Um, and that was that at one point covered everything that we made, not just fly rods, it was all the course fishing stuff and the spinning rods and all sorts stuff. And it's sort of that role's just sort of morphed over the years into lots of different things as well as the rod development side of it.
Katie
So now are you focused just on designing fly rods or do you still have a little bit wider reach?
Howard
So basically I work on all of the fly product with a few exceptions and it's not just for Hardy & Greys, it's also for the other brands. So we also own Shakespeare and Fenwick and we do some even some Pfluger fly product as well, not very much. But all that sort of falls to me to do the product aspect of it. But most of my time is spent on the Hardy and Grey stuff, which are our two strongest fly brands.
Katie
Both rods and reels?
Howard
Yeah, so on the reel front, we have two engineers. We obviously still have a reel manufacturing plant in Anick, which is obviously the home of the Hardy brand. We have two engineers who sit there, they effectively do all of the hard work when it comes to designing the reels. Really, my part in that is to write some of the specifications of what we want. So things like drag power, weight, dimensions, what the product has to be. And then the two engineers that we've got, there's actually three of them, well, four, we've got two apprentices as well, coming up behind the two main engineers. They basically make it work. So they take all my unreasonable requests and turn it into something that can actually be manufactured.
Katie
How often do they say something like, that doesn't exist? Like, what you've described here is not possible.
Howard
Yeah, all the time. I mean, if they didn't, I wouldn't be doing my job. So you know, I've got to keep asking for things they can't make.
Katie
How do you come up with your next idea? And I think maybe this is more related to the reels than the rods, I'm not sure. But let's say it's time for you to create a new rod or reel. Are you listening to what customers are saying they want? Are you looking for gaps in your inventory? How does the next iteration come to be when you're thinking of what you need?
Howard
Yeah, so it depends, really. There's lots of different ways. Because fishing's-- there's nothing really new in fishing, but it does keep-- it does change. Things change. So for argument's sake, you know, I'll take it to a product I know really well, which is like nymphing rods for argument's sake. So when I very first started doing the rod development part of the business, um, we didn't have a single rod over nine feet in length for a line size. Um, you know, below a five. So we had like nine foot five weights, nine foot, six weights, nine foot, four weights, and a 10 foot rod was always a six or seven or an eight weight. Um, but obviously some of them, what we now call European infant was starting to gain traction. Um, and there was very, very few companies making a rod of 10 feet tall along with a light line size on it. So we started developing those, you know, and now, you know, it's quite commonplace to have a rod that's 11 foot long for a two weights. You know, when I very first started that really didn't exist as a, as a product that you could buy, you know, um, there was a few specialist builders making them, but very, very minimal, you know, none of the main rod brands had anything like that. Um, so it does change. Um, so quite a lot of the time when we develop something new, we're reacting to something, um, some change in the, you know, in what fishermen want, but equally it can be, you know, uh, pro staff for argument's sake mentioned before, Andy male, again, good friend of mine, a lot of type and fishing. Um, when we started to develop new saltwater odds, you know, he was saying, look, you know, 12 weights, really nine foot, 12 weights are old school. Um, you know, more and more people don't, you know, we're using 11 weights and even 10 weights sometimes fishing for big top. And because, you know, the lines lights, uh, you get better delicate presentation, but they need to be strong, you know, so that's when, you know, back in 2000, um, 11 ish, 2010, 2011, we started working with the centrix material, you know, massive strength to weight ratio improvements. And that allowed us to build, you know, 11 weights that had soft tips, but also have the power of a 12 weight in the book section on the physical, uh, you know, compression to strength ratio to not break when you're trying to land a hundred pound fish. So, um, you know, things change, materials improve. Sometimes we take an existing design and put a new material on it. All the times it's a completely new design. It just really depends what we're, what we're trying to achieve.
Katie
OK. And do you know what trends are happening right now? I'm thinking of, at one point, fast action rods were the new thing. Everyone wanted as fast as you could go. And I think there's even been maybe a swing back from that, like we got too fast. But is there something that's going on right now that maybe hasn't been talked about in hindsight yet that you're aware of because you're kind of right on the ball of designing stuff and hearing what people want?
Howard
Yeah, it's tricky because-- So there's a lot of things that come and go and never really stick. And then every so often something sticks and it just like suddenly shoots right up to the top and it's everywhere again. You know what I mean? There's a few companies now, you know, going down the route to doing slightly strange things with rod handles again, which has been tried numerous times and never really sticks and gets too mainstream. You know, currently urine infrareds still a really big thing in the US in particular you know everybody thought that was a flash in the pan but it's not it's sort of stuck there and it's you know it seems to be sticking in terms of anything new not not hugely at the minute I mean if you look no you can you can pretty much get a rod for everything you know if you're into fiberglass you can find fiberglass rods for all kinds of fishing long like nymph rods small two-handed rods trouts but you know, it's, you know, as anglers, we all like an excuse to buy another fly rod. So, you know, I think we've done pretty well in filling most of the gaps.
Katie
Right, why do with one rod, what you could do with seven different rods?
Howard
Exactly, at least seven.
Katie
What is like a day in the life of a, you know, a rod designer like, because in my mind, I'm like, well, they're not, new rods aren't coming out from your brand, every single day. So in my mind, you're kind of hunched over designing rods, but I'm sure there's a lot more to it than just sitting down and drawing out dimensions and things like that. And there's obviously a lot of space between rod releases, so there's probably a lot of back and forth. So just tell me what I'm probably not understanding about what it takes to be a full-time rod designer. What are you doing day to day?
Howard
Yeah, so there's a lot. It really depends on the stage of the year and where we're at in like the development of a new product. So sometimes, you know, my, I hate to say it like the day job, but it's not really the day job. I'll be doing stuff based on marketing for the product, like shooting product videos or, you know, writing copy for something or, you know, because that's part of my job as well. And then other times I'll be doing nothing, you know, but going through loads of development blanks, trying to zero in an action on a range of sizes of rods for a particular project. Other times it'll be reviewing brake test data, because we do a lot of destructive testing. So when we try new materials, new layups, new mandrels, all that kind of stuff, it's all got to be proven. You have a good idea that it'll work, otherwise we wouldn't do it, but ultimately you still need to break a stack of them to get some physical data which we then make decisions off. And some of it can be collating physical brake test data with feedback from the field test staff that we use as well. So there's lots and lots and lots of different parts of it. So it's very, very varied. And to be honest, no two days are quite ever the same. I mean, at the minute now, I am sort of waiting for a gap in the weather. I've got quite a big range of new rods under development, and I've got about six models which I've not been able to get out with and actually use. So I need to go and fish with them. But all the rivers are big, we keep getting storms, so I've not been able to, and I'm going to be late actually, probably, getting them done. So hopefully next week.
Katie
And when you're designing, are you designing the blanks? This might be a really dumb question, but which part of the process do you kind of take over from? Are you informing how the blanks come out of manufacturing or you know how does that how does that work?
Howard
Yeah I mean it's really from top to bottom.
Katie
Okay.
Howard
So it's the whole thing I write you know I'll write a lot of the basic specifications I'll design you know sometimes I'll do all of the models other times you know if it's a slightly lower price point I'll do a few of the sizes and get those replicated by the engineering staff at the factory and then just then just test them and review basically. It really just depends because like I said I work on everything from you know low-end combo rods which are really quite straightforward right the way to you know the very high-end hardy stuff which are a lot more complicated, a lot more materials, you know multi-modular materials, no fiberglass, much more complex mandrel design, all that kind of stuff. So really it depends where it falls within that spread as to how physically how much I get involved. But on the hardy stuff, it's everything. You know, even down to all the componentry, the cosmetics, the whole thing.
Katie
What makes a higher-end rod more complicated to design than a lower-end rod?
Howard
Generally speaking, if you looked at a high-end hardy, for argument's sake, it'll have multiple materials in it. It'll be on generally a much more complicated taper design, varying wall thicknesses, different bits of material here and there, trying to get to an end action and an end result. The actual manufacturing of it, the process, is typically a lot more involved than something at the other end of the scale. So for argument's sake, some of the materials we use have got to be handled in a very specific way when they're being rolled, so they have to be rolled on a table that's heated to a higher temperature, they have to be rolled under more pressure. They're a more complicated product to produce than a very basic combo rod that's got one, maybe two materials at the most, very simple design that can be manufactured relatively easily. And obviously at the very high end, when you're working with higher modulus materials that might have lower resin content and things like that. The design is just a lot more finite than the manufacturing process. Everyone seems to think that they're just cheap to manufacture, they're really not. Some of the componentry that goes in to the high-end rods costs more than total manufacturing cost of a low-end combo rod. There's a big spread in everything from Cost of materials and components right the way through to how effectively how complicated the air to manufacture
Katie
What main differences do you notice between a really high-end rod and a low-end rod and obviously, you know Like they'll cast better but like if somebody is trying to decide, you know, is it worth it to buy a more expensive rod? Can you name some specific things that someone might notice if they cast a great rod versus a lower end rod?
Howard
So the thing is it's what it's worth to the person buying it really So, I mean I can I can cast a fly line with anything with a screwdriver with a You know if you can cast You know that there's in All honest is very few bad rods these days, you know Even combo rods compared to even what I learned to fish with, you know, 30 years ago 35 years ago You know combo rods now are probably twice as good as the stuff I had to learn how to fish with because all that stuff from The top end just keeps trickling down as something new comes, you know at the top end, you know Things do have a tendency to drop down But you know when you buy a high-end rod You know the first of all the amount of if you take away the materials and the components and all that the physical amount of time somebody like myself or or some of our pro staff have put into refining that action for that specific use or number of specific uses is far, far higher because we're always looking to try and make the fishing experience just for ourselves, not necessarily just for the consumer, more enjoyable. So like, again, I take it back to an infant rods, trying to make the tip more sensitive, flex with less weight, but still be strong enough to set the hook and blend nicely into the rest of the rod for a fighting curve when you're playing the bigger fish and make it durable. Takes a lot more of my time and a pro staff's time to get that right. Then on the material side of it, right at the high end, we'll typically be using materials which are imported from sometimes Japan, occasionally the States, higher end, more expensive materials. Cork, you know, is a big one. It's expensive to get very, very good cork now. So typically the higher end stuff, you're getting a much better handle. Sounds like a little thing, but cork quality is at times can be a living nightmare trying to maintain your quality because the price goes up all the time as well. And then componentry like titanium guides, we use a lot of recoil on our high end rods because the lighter, they're still durable. They give you a slightly better feel in the blank because you don't have, you've not got rigid hardware tied to the blank, you have something that flexes. So that helps a little bit with line feel. So yeah, I mean, you do, to some degree, get what you pay for.
Katie
So it sounds like I may not have been thinking as in-depth about all the different parts of catching a fish, because I'm thinking of high end versus low end. I'm like, when I cast it, how well does that cast? But you're not often thinking about, well, maybe you're playing a fish, and a high-end rod absorbs that a little bit better. And maybe you don't lose that fish because the rod does what it's supposed to do, but you wouldn't necessarily connect that to the rod. Like if you had a fish break off, you'd think, you know, like, oh, I did something wrong, which, you know, most of the time it probably is user error, but it sounds like there's some things that are kind of hidden in the process of catching a fish that could be attributed to a better rod that you might not even think of because it's just not related specifically to casting accuracy or something like that.
Howard
Yeah, I mean, there is a little bit of that, but, you know, having a good, durable blank, you know, that behaves in the way it should do cast it and is accurate and recovers well, doesn't oscillate too much, you know, when you stop it, all of those kinds of things are design attributes, which, you know, typically are better and more refined and more expensive, more expensive product. You know, a good example is, you know, on the saltwater stuff again, you know, like a 10 weight, like one of our one piece 10 weights that get used a lot down in the Keys for the people tarpon tournament fishing and the 11 weights, those rods have got, you know, incredibly sensitive tips that you can flex even very short range with almost just the leader and the fly out, they'll flex. But when you get a fish at the side of the boat, a hundred pound plus fish, that rod will hoop almost double, you know, and not break. And that in itself is not an easy thing to do, to have a rod with that many attributes that can cast short, cast long, you know, then put up with a right kicking at the side of the boat, that's a difficult thing. And certainly not something you can do in a low-end rod and still keep the weight down, you know, because those rods are five ounces of that.
Katie
I see. A similar question for reels. You know, what would someone find in a high-end reel versus a low-end reel that would make the difference?
Howard
Yeah, so again, there's a little bit with reels. It's a little bit less important. You know, the reel holds the line really, 'cause a lot of fly fishing, people just don't use the reel for anything other than to wind the line on and strip it off. And you can, for most fishing, you can get away with that. Obviously, when you start to go saltwater fishing, you need a drag, you know, because those fish are gonna run longer. And typically for us, as you go up the price range, you get one of two things really. In the performance reels, what you get is a reel that's typically got a more advanced drag system, carbon fiber, whatever it is, puts out more poundage. So you can apply more pressure with the reel if you really want to. The mechanism in the higher end performance reels is generally sealed. So like a Fortuna Regent, that has got sealed submersible drag cassette in there, which basically effectively means it's maintenance free. So if you're gonna do a lot of saltwater fishing, that's definitely a worthwhile investment because it just cuts down on the amount of downtime of having to get it serviced or repaired or keep cleaning it. Those things just keep on going. On the classic side of it, when you pay a bit more money, what you get in is something that's a lot more heavily hand worked for want of a better description. So things like Perfects and Cascopedias that we manufacture in our factory at Anick, the amount of physical hands-on work that goes into that reel is very, very high. So they're all hand polished, they're all hand assembled. It's a huge amount of work. So that's what you get when you pay for a higher end classic reel. A lot more time spent by one of our reel builders actually manufacturing it and building it from scratch. I mean, those things start off as two solid disks of aluminum, and we throw 85% of it away.
Katie
So part of what you're getting is the artistic craftsmanship of it, the same way you might pay for a hand-painted piece of art versus a print. There's something valuable about somebody made it themselves.
Howard
Yeah, basically. And we don't make tens of thousands of classic reels every year. It's relatively speaking a limited amount of production. We have a small factory in Anick that produces all the classic handmade stuff, same small group of people that's done it for years. really buying an investment with that stuff. You know, it's, you know, the classic iconic pieces of tackle that's been handmade in England for a long time.
Katie
I've got kind of a silly side question that it's not really related to this, but it's just something I've wondered and I think you're the person to ask. I've gotten reels over the years and this has happened to some of the older ones I have gotten where when I first get them, as the line is pulled out, they click, they make a sound. And over the years that goes away. The first reel I ever got basically has fallen apart. I'll never get rid of it because it's sentimental, but it's trash at this point. But at first it had a nice satisfying click as the line came out, and eventually it almost feels like it smoothed out. And now it comes off silently. The reel is completely silent as you pull line out. Do you know what causes that? Why over time and use, the reel loses that sound?
Howard
It depends what kind of reel it is really. If it's, like so for our reels for argument's sake, it was a classic made in England reel with a spring and pole system in it. Over the years, I mean they'll go for a hell of a long time, take a huge amount of use, but the spring can slacken, you know. It can be tightened, you've just literally got to nip it with a pair of, I just happen to have a pair here, a pair of these like little snipe nose pliers, you can nip the spring tight again. or the pole can wear down. You know, you've got a little ratchet cog and a pole, metal on metal, the component can wear. And, you know, we still do, for our reels anyway, we still do, you know, in-house service and repair for the reels. 'Cause nothing lasts forever, although some of the classic reels literally do just keep going and going. But if it's a more modern reel, it might have a Delrin clicker in it and that can wear. Again, they can be replaced. It really depends on the mechanism.
Katie
Yeah, I think the reels I'm talking about are not click and pawl reels. That I feel like is a more... Like a click and pawl, I can kind of see the mechanism. So yeah, I was just curious because we always joke that the click makes it sound fancier, and so when the click disappears, it feels like the reel has lost its fanciness. So that's good to know, though. And the drag still works. So I wasn't sure where something was wearing down. I'm sure something must be, but...
Howard
It's probably just an internal clicker pin.
Katie
Okay.
Howard
But whatever brand it is, you should be able to send it back. I mean, some brands don't do service and repair, but we do on our stuff.
Katie
Back to actual rod design, what are the differences between rods of different weights? So let's say it's the same rod, a four weight versus a six or seven weight. Does the design change at all to go up in weight, or does it scale pretty well? Like, I don't know what makes a rod a bigger weight. Is it just bigger, or does the design actually change to handle a different weight line?
Howard
Yeah, it changes. I mean, obviously it's mandrel geometry to some degree. So they're on typically on a different mandrel, you know, it might be a faster taper or whatever to get some more mechanical stiffness, but then obviously it can be a percentage of a given material to increase its stiffness. So, you know, as you go up in line size, there might be more M46 in it than a light, a much lighter model in the range, you know, so it's a, it's a combination of a mountain type of material on the mandrel geometry. So when you look at a blank, typically, you know, it's a combination of those things, you know, material orientation and the mandrel, you know, and then the interpretation of what makes a five-weight versus a six-weight, it's where it gets a little bit murkier because you're ultimately you're buying to some degree somebody's preference. You know, what makes an ideal five-weight for me might not necessarily make an ideal five weight for everybody, you know, who's designing rods anyway. So you do get those little individual interpretations. We sort of smoothed that out a little bit by having quite a big pro staff. So I send a lot of stuff out and say, look, you know, this is what I like for this new five weight that's going to do X, but you go and fish it and, you know, give me your feedback. And sometimes that feedback we take on board and I make modifications and other times we don't, it just really depends. But it's quite a group effort, really.
Katie
The last set of questions I wanted to ask are for somebody who's trying to choose a rod. Maybe they're completely new to fly fishing, and they want to figure out what rod they need. Or just somebody who maybe got a first rod, but now wants to dive a little deeper into getting specifically what they need. I just want to ask a handful of questions about the differences in materials, actions, and things like that. So they might end up being basic answers. But start me off with the main differences between a graphite and a fiberglass rod, if somebody's trying to decide between those two main styles, I guess.
Howard
Yeah, I mean, fiberglass is great for some things and not so good for others. Generally speaking, fiberglass is a bit lower in modulus, recovers a little bit slower, but it loads easier. So it's not a bad thing to get the feel of a fly rod with, provided it's a good fiberglass rod, 'cause there are some horrible ones as well. So you don't want anything too floppy and bouncy and weird. So yeah, fiberglass rod could be the right thing, you know, just to get the feel of it. To be honest, a well-designed graphite fly rod, carbon fiber fly rod, provided it's not too fast in action, you know, something in the middle, a little bit more moderate, middle to tip, medium fast, however you want to describe it, is probably the best thing to start with. It's also probably the best all-round fishing action to some degree. You don't really want to go down that super fast route, especially when you're just starting off.
Katie
Maybe I should have actually started with action since we're referring to action in the materials, but talk about fast and slow action for somebody who's not familiar with what those things mean and what they're good for.
Howard
Well, there's really two things. There's how easy something flexes, so how fast it loads and how quickly it recovers. You know, those are two slightly different things. So for argument's sake, you know, if you put it into the common terminology, you know, through or slower action rods tend to generally speaking, load a little bit easier and recover a little bit slower. So whilst they might not be the best, you know, performance tool for fishing with, if somebody's never flexed a fly rod before, it's probably the easiest thing for them to flip a line backwards and forwards with get a little bit of a feel for the you know the bending motion of a rod. When you get into sort of the middle ground you know middle to tip medium fast you know that rod will be a little bit stiffer in the butt section but the tip in the middle will still flex with a degree of ease but the tip will probably recover a bit quicker so it's a good all-round it's the rod I use most for my own kind of fishing and then at the other end of the scale you've got fast action stuff, which typically your timing's got to be better, your technique's got to be better, they're a harder rod to use well, they're typically a little bit trickier to load or harder to load, and the tip recovers really quick. So you've got to be more precise with them. But there's a lot of leeway as well between those three very basic descriptions. You can do a lot with the action of a fly rod.
Katie
And part of it, especially for people who have more experience, would just be the fun. If you like casting a fiberglass rod because you like feeling that bend, then that might be the right rod for you just because that's what you like to use.
Howard
Yeah, I'd say 100%. I've got a few fiberglass rods that I use a handful of times a year to do certain things just because I enjoy doing it. It's not because it's maybe the ideal thing for it, but it's nice to go and do it. There is a few exceptions to that. For argument's sake, if you're fishing constantly in heavy brush and heavy cover and you're banging the rod off overhanging trees and all sorts of fiberglass is probably still one of the best things out there because it's impact resistant, whereas some graphite materials aren't. Some are pretty good, but ultimately a fiberglass rod might be the best thing for a certain kind of fishing.
Katie
Now, what about rod length? If somebody is trying to choose a rod for their specific circumstance, how would they they go about deciding whether they might want a shorter rod or a longer rod?
Howard
Well, it really depends to some degree on, on the specifics of the fishery that you're in a little bit. You know, so if it's, if it's a single handed rod for trout, it's, it's pretty hard to go wrong with something around about nine feet in length, you know. You can start shorter, um, but you know, a nine foot is a good sort of all round, you know, cause if it's your first rod and you're going to use it in a lot of different places. You can use a nine foot rod on most rivers, you know, you can use it on most lakes for most kinds of techniques. It's not ideal, you know, for everything obviously, there's no such thing, but a nine foot five weight, you know, it's still a very good all-round rod for somebody who's just starting off. Obviously if you suddenly decide you're gonna start off salmon fishing it's not the right thing to get, but if you're starting with trout, you know, a number of other species, a nine five is still a pretty good go-to.
Katie
Can you think of a a scenario for each, like say you're still fishing for trout of roughly the same size. What's a scenario where you might want to go longer than nine feet and what's a scenario where you might want to go shorter than nine feet?
Howard
So first thing for going longer, when you increase the rod length, you're increasing your ability to control the line to some degree. So mend inability, let's say you're going to fish from a float tube in a lake, you know, you sat down lower closer to the water. When I float tube fish I use a 10 foot 5 weight because it keeps me back cast higher, I pick line up faster, it allows me to change direction quicker, all that kind of stuff. Equally if I was fishing in a small, heavily brushed in stream, I wouldn't want a nine foot rod, I'd probably use a shorter seven or eight footer. So it depends, one of the main things is how much space you've got to swing the thing. Longer rods do put a little bit more leverage on you, so when you're learning it's maybe not the best thing to learn with. Having a longer rod it's a little bit easier with something around nine foot probably. Likewise, a very short rod, typically you might run into problems with sticking the fly in the groin behind you, particularly if you're new to casting. Nine's a good average.
Katie
Yeah, I've actually never thought of the longer rod as being helpful for float tubes, because we use our float tubes and we use our 9-foot. And it works, but I have many times thought, wow, I wish I were just like a foot higher off the water right now. But I didn't think about the fact that I could just add a foot to the fly rod to make that the case. But I definitely love using a shorter rod in the willow choked small mountain streams we have here, because a 9-foot rod just feels like you can't move with it. So having a 7-foot rod feels like suddenly the world opens up to you. It's not like you're making long casts anyway. You might be casting like 10 feet out in front of you at the most. So there's really no need to have any extra line distance or anything. That's a good tip on the float, too.
Howard
No, it's the same with boat fishing. So over here, a lot of guys, they all use 10-foot rods because we fish methods like the method called the hang. So when we're fishing from a drifting boat, at the end of the retrieve, you hold the flies out at arm's length in front of the boat. And with a nine foot rod, you hang a lot closer to the boat than you do with a ten foot rod. You can hold more line out, sort of tented away from the boat. So it's more effective. You catch more fish with a slightly longer rod.
Katie
Well, is there anything that you think we didn't cover that would be an important consideration in choosing a fly rod?
Howard
Yeah, I'd probably say, you know, especially if it's your first rod, the best thing to do is not to rush out and buy the single most expensive fly rod that there is. you know, uninformed, because it's not going to help you learn how to cast. You know, I'll be honest, when I learned how to fly cast, I actually learned with a spinning rod, with a fly reel taped to the bottom of the handle, because, you know, my dad didn't know if I was going to take to it or not, and so he made me fish with that for about the first 12 months. I'm not suggesting people do that, but, you know, you're better off buying something for a reasonable amount of money until you can form your own opinions of what works best for you. We sell fly rods from the full spectrum from less than 50 bucks right the way up to $1,000 fly rods. There's something there for everybody. They're all good rods in their own respect. Start somewhere in the middle. You don't have to spend a fortune. Get used to it. Make your mistakes with that before you start making a slightly more informed choice of something better, whatever better is to you.
Katie
Yeah. And I think adding to that point, thinking of how you are as an angler, are you somebody who goes and fishes the same place every single day for the same kind of fish? Maybe you need one rod that is perfect for that location. Or do you travel all over and fish for all kinds of fish? Maybe you'd be better off with a couple less expensive rods.
Howard
Yeah, exactly.
Katie
If you have the same amount of money, vary your quiver, if you will, instead of going all in on one really nice rod. Whereas one really nice rod might be the right thing for somebody. So considering how you fish and how diverse your experiences are might also inform whether you want a whole bunch of rods or just one really nice one.
Howard
Yeah, 100%. I mean, the thing is, fishing's what you make of it in a lot of ways. So I'll give you an example. A really good friend of mine, his number one go-to rod that he uses whenever he can is a classic Leonard split-cane fly rod. That's what he fishes. He loves cane, not as keen on carbon. He'll use that rod to the exception of most others, even when it's probably not the best rod to use, but that's what gives him enjoyment from his fishing. That ultimately is all it's really about. Do you enjoy using it? Is it more or less the right thing for what you're doing?
Katie
Yeah, I've got a semi-low-end rod that I take into the backcountry. So if I trip and fall and break it, I'm not going to be upset. But it's gotten to the point where I've taken it on so many adventures that I now have a sentimental value to it. Now I'd be really upset if I broke it just because it's been on all of my best adventures because I was choosing it for its low-endness. And so it's come full circle where now this is a really important rod to me solely because I was like, "This isn't a very important rod to me." So I definitely will second the, uh, the, the rod is what you make of it. And if it's the right rod for you, just because you have a good time, then then that's the right rod for you. So, um, let's just wrap up with, uh, where people can either find you personally, if you'd like to share that or, um, can find rods from Hardy and Graze and, um, anything else you'd like to direct people to.
Howard
Yeah, definitely. I mean, you can, you can find me on, on Facebook and Instagram. Can't even remember what it is. I should be able to, but it's something like Howard Croston Fly Fisher on the other ones held across them fly fishing and you can find me on the herding graze rods you can always go to herding fishing just to our website or the graze fishing website a quick Google search either of herding or graze will bring those up pretty easily and you can you can find where our dealers are on the dealer locator though but we are we are pretty pretty high visibility I think we're pretty easy to find on the internet. So yeah, that's a good one.
Katie
All right, Howard, well, thank you for doing this. I learned a lot about the rod making process and hopefully if someone's looking for a new rod, they can find some benefit here in choosing one and maybe we'll check out Hardy & Greys. So I just thank you for coming on today.
Howard
No problem, thanks a lot, Kate.
Katie
All right, that's a wrap. Thank you all for listening. If you wanna find all the other episodes as well as show notes, you can find those on fishuntamed.com. You'll also find the contact link there if you wanna reach out to me. And you can also find me on Instagram @fishuntamed. If you wanna support the show, you can give it a follow on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcasting app. And if you'd like to leave a review, it would be greatly appreciated. But otherwise, thank you all again for listening. I'll be back here in two weeks with another episode. Take care, everybody.
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