If there's room for backing, I always add it since the larger the diameter of the spindle, the faster you can rewind line onto the reel. But most of my ultralite fishing hasn't really needed backing, since I don't often play a fish on the reel. Only two occasions come to mind: One was a 21" smallmouth bass that took me into my backing and took probably 15+ minutes to land on my 3wt. The other was a 20+" brook trout that did the same thing. In the former case, I was not expecting so large a fish to bother with the #12 wooly bugger I was casting; in the latter case, I should have known better because the river I was fishing does hold trout bigger than that, and they will take very small flies at times.
brent

Those are some nice sized fish, Brent!!

Welcome to the forum. To answer your question, yes I would add backing. It takes up space on the arbor of the reel, so you line doesn’t coil up as bad, and is easier to attach the fly line to backing than straight to the arbor of the spool.

Can you use a 3/4 wt line on a 2 wt rod?

Thanks Brent!

Great! Thanks!!

Greetings and thanks for having me.

I’ve been specializing in lite line fly fishing since 1995 or so. At that time, Orvis had the “One Club” which I thought was really cool. A place for 1-weight enthusiasts.

Recently, I returned to fly fishing via a really sweet midge rod three times shorter than my favorite rod.

I started reading some of the content here and decided to join.

Thanks for having me.

Sorry Brent, but a new rod isn't going to help you catch more fish.

With friends like you guys, who needs enemas?

Fair enough. Good first step is admitting I have a problem.