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 Post subject: Casting the TFO Finesse
PostPosted: Sun Nov 17, 2013 8:03 pm • # 1 
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Hey, I have a TFO Finesse 4wt @ 8'-9" and I am using a DT 3wt line on it. My other rods are 3,4,5 and a 6 all carbon and Med Fast action. When I cast the Finesse I get out to about 50' and the line will drop on its self and most cases I hook my braided leader. It it me or is 50' what you guys are getting also.


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PostPosted: Sun Nov 17, 2013 9:04 pm • # 2 
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Kid,
Welcome to the forum.
Why are you underlining this rod? It's been my experience to cast the finesse with the stated line weight or more. Your problem may be due to underlining...

Les


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PostPosted: Sun Nov 17, 2013 9:52 pm • # 3 
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mostly I am now using it on ponds and need to get more distance, after 30' or so, it felt like too much strain for the rod, to me it feels like the 4wt was just to heavy and the rod didn't want to come forward with enough effort so I went to a lighter weight. and if i were back in Colorado on a 15' stream I would go back to the 4wt. I think i am asking the rod to do something it was not designed for or are you guys casting Finesse rods out further and i need to work on my method for that rod?


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PostPosted: Sun Nov 17, 2013 9:58 pm • # 4 
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Yes. I can cast that rod easily to fifty, but I would be doing it with WF4.5 not WF3.
iMO, I think you need to try it with heavier line, and you should get better results.


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PostPosted: Sun Nov 17, 2013 10:04 pm • # 5 
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I do have some 5wt so I will give it a try. On the TFO site they say it is a presentation rod and not so much a distance rod but they don't give any distances in feet, just some rods are longer casting?? That left me wondering if I was doing it wrong or if they were designed to cast at 40 feet.
thanks


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PostPosted: Mon Nov 18, 2013 1:32 am • # 6 
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Also if you can get your hands on a Double Taper line, give that a go. You'll be surprised how far they can cast once you get the timing right.


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PostPosted: Mon Nov 18, 2013 11:38 am • # 7 
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I have that rod and I believe it is a 3 weight, not a 4 weight. I tried to use a wf4 on the rod but it was just too slow to fish. I don't think the finesse was built for casts over 50 feet. I've been fly fishing 60 years and I don't think I can lawn cast that rod 50 feet. I'm gonna get it out of the closet and retest it because ole les knows his stuff, but that 4 weight finesse is the only rod I ever underlined. ( I can cast the little glass south fork 2 weight almost as far as I can cast the finesse 4 weight)-p-


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PostPosted: Mon Nov 18, 2013 4:48 pm • # 8 
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okay; I apologize for my earlier comments which were not accurate. I have this rod. It stays in my truck along with a cheep crystal river reel loaded with wf#3 line of unknown vintage(I think orvis).. I haven't cast this rod nor fished it in over a year. Took it out to get re-acquainted on the front lawn. Used 3 lines wf#3, wf#4, and dt#4. It was fairly breezy today, gusty, and wind primarily was in my face as I have only one direction to cast due to overhead trees and power lines.
I like the wf#3 with this rod, which I have used primarily with poppin bugs and casts under 40 feet.
However, when I cranked it up to get the 50-60 foot cast, the line just wouldn't cooperate; I got a lot of tailing loops and frustration.
Switched to the wf#4 and found that 50-60 foot casts were moderately easy, despite gusty conditions. The four line loads the rod really well for the long casts and cut thru the breeze. It may be a four weight after all.
The dt#4 is probably the best of the three in terms of fishing(someone said that earlier) It seemed to perform at moderate ranges equal to the three, and at maximum ranges almost equal to the wf#4.
course, fishing is different than lawn casting. There must be more reasons why I use the wf#3 line with it, but the bottom line is(to answer the question) use a wf#4 line for casting 45+ feet. The rod feels a mite slower, but the power is there.
I like this rod; gotta fish it more. They named it correctly; its a finesse rod, not a 'let 'er rip" rod, but its my cup of tea; nice lightweight four. Sorry for my previous inaccuracies, but at least I corrected them-p-


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PostPosted: Mon Nov 18, 2013 4:58 pm • # 9 
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this is a little off subject but do either of you guy have glass rods and could compare them to finesse? are they firmer, I think finesse was made to mimic a glass rod but I never used glass.


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PostPosted: Mon Nov 18, 2013 5:57 pm • # 10 
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I think so also; its nice easy graphite; similar to glass. I have lots of glass rods(way too many); as does Les and others on this site. In the lighter weight rods and rods 8 feet and under glass is king in my book. Why?the casting stroke for glass fits my fishing style; glass will protect lighter tippets, which is a plus with ul rods; glass is tough; much more difficult to abuse than graphite....and in the lighter weights glass doesn't weigh but a fraction more than graphite. A 3 weight glass rod is the equivalent of a 00 graphite rod(in my opinion)Most people who love to fish with ul rods, love the glass rods(but some don't)"snap" casters prefer graphite and there's nothing wrong with their preference. I have probably 25 rods 3 weight and under; at least 18 of them are glass.-p-


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PostPosted: Mon Nov 18, 2013 6:16 pm • # 11 
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Glass is nice- yet there is faster glass both 'e' and 's' types and slower in both makes. Determining how an action will be becomes very difficult because there are designers with varying preferences for taper design. You see this with cane builder mostly, but many glass builders using modern fiberglass materials are having fun creating faster and lighter tapers to create a transition for most graphite users.

The older Fenwick HMG graphite rods were designed in a period when folks wanted the action to feel more like glass, and so those designs would be considered slow for today. If you were to compare an HMG to A TFO Finesse I think you'd find that the TFO product is more moderate fast in comparison- yet slower than other TFO offerings.


Les


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PostPosted: Tue Nov 19, 2013 1:48 am • # 12 
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I'm having a 3wt 7'3" Glass rod being built for me, will post photos once it's completed, I have asked the builder (a good friend) to take a few photos of the steps so that I can post the pics here). On a quick look at the blank's action it feels absolutely amazingly sexily smooth! So I am hoping it is like the glass blanks you guys are talking about and lasts long! :D


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PostPosted: Thu Nov 21, 2013 7:16 pm • # 13 
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you will have to make some adjustments to your stroke, but I think you'll love glass. I don't see a place for fast glass because graphite is much lighter than fiberglass so,... if you want a fast action rod, it would seem that graphite would be a better choice. However, I have been wrong on occasion-p-


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PostPosted: Mon Dec 16, 2013 9:49 pm • # 14 
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pearow wrote:
I think so also; its nice easy graphite; similar to glass. I have lots of glass rods(way too many); as does Les and others on this site. In the lighter weight rods and rods 8 feet and under glass is king in my book. Why?the casting stroke for glass fits my fishing style; glass will protect lighter tippets, which is a plus with ul rods; glass is tough; much more difficult to abuse than graphite....and in the lighter weights glass doesn't weigh but a fraction more than graphite. A 3 weight glass rod is the equivalent of a 00 graphite rod(in my opinion)Most people who love to fish with ul rods, love the glass rods(but some don't)"snap" casters prefer graphite and there's nothing wrong with their preference. I have probably 25 rods 3 weight and under; at least 18 of them are glass.-p-


Do you have quite a collection there! And I was thinking to myself not to get another rod because I felt guilt with around 20 in total!


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PostPosted: Mon Dec 16, 2013 10:24 pm • # 15 
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Simon,
I've been trying to pair down he collection, but after selling three I'll turn around and buy another. My wife says I never met a rod I didn't like. Some truth in that because I'll take the time to try and find a line that will make rod work at it's best, but some rods are just dogs no matter how we try. Poorly design glass rods fall in this category.

Les


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PostPosted: Thu Dec 26, 2013 10:07 pm • # 16 
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I have a 7'9" Finesse 3 weight for creekin' in tight quarters and use a 3.5 weight WF GPX line with it. Small water is my favorite so it gets used more than my other kits. It casts effortlessly out to 25', but really only fishes well out to 20' or less for mending and hook setting.


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PostPosted: Fri Jan 17, 2014 11:00 pm • # 17 
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I have both the Finesse 8'9" 4wt and the 3wt. I had a similar issue with the 3wt but changed to a longer head wf line and it started to really work much better. This past fall I put the same line on the 4wt and it preformed very well also. I also have it in 7'9" 3wt as was stated above it is more of a small water rod, funny thing is I have an older 7'6" 3wt that is much slower but casts and fished farther than this rod will. the 7'9" does cast very sweet out to about 30-35 feet as long as I have a dry fly on it. I use these for guiding on local smaller waters, one thing I have found is that clients that have been using faster rods due take a bit of time to slow down enough to get them to work but once they do they do well.


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 18, 2014 9:42 am • # 18 
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I have the 2 wt 7'3" Finesse. I am a newer caster so I overlined it with a 3 wt SA Trout Stalker (that was the name, I think?) line. I can feel the bend and I think it helps my timing.

I love fishing small streams and this rod is more suited for this fishing. Bushes, bends and gradients restrict casts to 30'. My casts tend to involve one false cast and set it back down, maybe a roll cast. I've never run out of distance when on the stream. I think that rod has medium action, especially coupled with the heavier line.

Here is what I have concluded from the catalogs. Fast or stiff rods = fast line speeds; fast line speeds roll out out to longer distances. Therefore if you want distance you should lean towards fast action rods all else being equal. Said another way, you never get all the energy of the rod loading (bending) back. You get the majority of the energy back into the line, but some is lost forever and the rod probably "heats" up a little.

Can you cast the finesse far? I think so. I am sure there are casters out there who could throw a fly longer than I could dream of. But I believe if the same caster used the same line, leader and fly on a given finesse, and switched the set up to a fast action rod, same weight & length, over time, this caster would throw farther with the stiffer rod. But I do love my finesse and it is my preferred rod on small streams.

Sorry, some one put a quarter in me.


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 18, 2014 1:23 pm • # 19 
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pearow wrote:
okay; I apologize for my earlier comments which were not accurate. I have this rod.
I like the wf#3 with this rod, which I have used primarily with poppin bugs and casts under 40 feet.
However, when I cranked it up to get the 50-60 foot cast, the line just wouldn't cooperate; I got a lot of tailing loops and frustration.
Switched to the wf#4 and found that 50-60 foot casts were moderately easy, despite gusty conditions.-p-


On reading your original post about the results of casting the rod by underlining it it immediately jumped out at me that you were having to try too hard to get the line to work and was therefore punching or over exerting at the end and so the tailing loop. As Pearow pointed out the correct line weight got the rod working as designed and so easier to get the distance.


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PostPosted: Sun Feb 02, 2014 10:13 pm • # 20 
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up date: I bought a 3wt Redington CT 8'6" on sale and used both rods for a while until i decided that the CT just has a smoother action that works farther down the blank than the finesse does. They are similar but I think the CT does what a rod like this is supposed to do a litter better with out compromise. I found that the CT loaded easier with the the designated line and I am not left wondering if I could do better with some other weight or style line. Really love this rod and happy that I caught it on sale but would pay the full price for it now that I know just how smooth and even tempo'ed this rod is. Sold the finesse and a Kreh Pro model also. picked up an L-Tech 4wt 9ft and between this and the CT I feel totally covered from 5wt down to 3 for average size streams and ponds.


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