Preamble:
I am not a master caster and I am not a master builder. The only UL rods that I tried are: the "vintage" Orvis ultrafine 7,9 #2; Sage rpl 8,6 #2; American Tackle Matrix 6,6 #2, 2 pieces; Batson Rainshadow rx8 6,6 #2, 4 pieces; and the Pacific Bay Rainforest2 7,9 #3, 2 pieces, with the butt reduced to make a 6,6 #2.
I was looking to a shorter UL rod in the 5 feet range and since the Pac Bay and the Amtack have the same tip butt section I made a short butt long 47 centimetres (effectives 44 excluding the part who enter in the tip) using some spare parts of broken rods that a gentle shopper donated me. I tried to buy the butt section of the pacbay before but the european dealer in Germany never replied to my email where I asked them if it was possible have the butt section only.
Btw I made a correct butt, who was closer as possible to the action of the original butt section and I built it: to do it I needed simply find one with the correct tip section and, since it was a little softer that the original, I reinforced it gluing inside another piece of rod who adapted to his section.
This is the result:
I obtained 2 different rods:
With the tip of the Pac Bay a 5 and 6, 165cm, 43 grams, ern 1,20, AA 60;
with the tip of the AmTack a 4 and 10, 146cm, 40 grams, ern 1,86, AA 57.
The 2 rods are really different in action: the pac bay has a very thin tip (in real a 3,0/64) then tend to bend more the tip and be more progressive; the Amtack seems more powerful but it has a more thick tip and tend to bend more in the mid part and to be more parabolic. The result is that the Pacbay is able to cast #1 and #2 lines without any problem in short distances even to 40 feets, and even a little more far that the amtack, who feels better in short distances with the #2 and in long is not so accurate like the pacbay, maybe because it is even a little shorter.
Anyway the PacBay, despite the ern, casts without problems a dt2f, but simply you feel the rod who works more close to the butt that with lighter lines. I think that this is one of the more all round blanks for a UL fly fisher that I had the chance to try.
I tried yesterday on the water the pac bay and it worked very well: perfect loops, not too tight, but correct. I used a wf1f and in spite of the wind it worked correctly.
Unfortunately the water was influenced by melting snow (you see the colour) and I didn't catch fishes: I hope to try it soon with a fish too.