David, Thanks for welcome. I am not an expert on UL tapers or rods for matter made of any material. Though handling mostly vintage bamboo examples and research I have a basic understanding. Many lightweight bamboo tapers of 6 1/2 - 9' may fall into this category. I usually use a combination of ferrule size & rod wt. to determine this rather than rod wt. alone, as you know these tapers can react differently with lighter/heavier line wt. either way of advertised/recommended line wt., and ,in my understanding, not all lines are created equal. Mostly my focus has been on vintage cane before line standards came into use in the 50's-60's. Many times a silk line could be match to the rod's advertised weight as new lines of today. So, I very much like increase the scope of the conversation and to include the many lightweight tapers throwing 4 wt and below line, if that is what you had in mind? Very few UL bamboo rods examples exist publicly, many are tucked away in personal/museum closets/collections, but it seems most big rod companies produced them at some time in their history, but they still remain rare birds. Montague made a 6 1/2' Manitou and a Fishkill, advertised in 1939, but I own most every length Fishkill from 7 1/2- 9 1/2' made yet have never seen one for sale or display. Heddon, Granger, Southbend, Leonard, Divine, etc. all made these LW tapers, even the very rare 7 1/2' 3pc Redwing is more common. To me it is a fascinating part of rod making history as well. IMO, Ed PS: Although all these tapers are hard to find, some considered proprietary, guarded by some makers, they all were developed long ago. So, many of these good one's have been published somewhere. I would think any real tweaking to them would be minimal at most, even though rod makers do not readily want to share them for what ever reason they may have in the back of their minds. My opinion, in the end, you buy the quality of the makers product not necessarily the taper, but on the other hand look at the Horrocks Ibbotson Tonka series a poor quality finished rods with great tapers, a fluke that many have copied. Also the low demand for these specialized UL rods further complicates and limits availability I would think.
Last edited by ewp313 on Fri Sep 14, 2012 9:40 am, edited 2 times in total.
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