Fenwick-Lifetime warranty. Because of the cost, we downgraded the Asquith to 7 points. They use a stack of thin diameter cork rings and the quality of the cork was good. Some anglers may not be, though. Rods are repaired, not replaced except for broken sections. In our important swing weight category, this rod was one of the worst. It was hard for me to get any feel or accuracy with such a stiff rod and a light line. Taylor Lifetime warranty to original owner. Hardy ZEPHRUS 8'6" #4 $679.00 George's Comments: Hardy has given us another magical rod that produced an absolutely stunning performance to blow away all the contenders. #2. The handle is a comfortable full wells design, and the quality of the cork was very good. Good-looking wood insert spacers that are finished well add to the attractiveness of any rod. That gives it a perfect score of 10 along with the Aetos. The blank is finished in a dark olive green with dark green wraps, that include a little light green trim on the butt. Since most anglers fish at shorter distances with a 4-weight rod, we decided to put less emphasis on the longest distance, decreasing the points available to 10 points. Click on any of the charts above to see more charts. Armstrong Spring Creek on the OHair Ranch. This is the best way to examine the action of each rod the faster action rods have tips that bend more, with stiffer butt and mid sections, while the more medium action rods will have softer butt and mid sections and stiffer tips. The IMX Pro is one of Loomis newest rods and we have liked it in the larger line sizes, like their 5 and 6 weight rods. G. LoomisLifetime warranty to original owner. Im convinced that the key to catching more trout, (and especially larger trout), is casting accuracy. Usually takes 2-4 weeks. The Hardy Shadow that tied for 4thplace sells for only $350.00. First, the Zephrus Ultralite's blank is surprisingly strong, stiff and stable given its weight. (Click here to see more deflection charts). This is one of the worst scores at long distance in our Shootout. Im surprised that both Sage rods are well down the list, but their performance scores were just not good enough to rate them higher. Orvis 25 year warranty to original owner. As part of the Expeditor policy, Loomis includes a FedEx call tag so that you dont have to spend any money to send the broken rod back. Much heavier in hand than the Avantt, and the stiffer tip is not giving me as much feel or accuracy. Performance at 25 feet: 18.5 points out of 20. Both the newWinston PUREandOrvis HELIOS 3F put in impressive performances, securing podium finishes. Feels great out long! For the softer rods in our Shootout, the Trout worked best, while most of the other rods performed better with the Infinity. But superior craftsmanship commands a much higher price! Rodis repaired, or sections replaced. The other reason is that this 9 #4 SKY is just too stiff for a 4-weight. Performance at 60 feet: 9.5 points out of 10. No other rod maker does this better. For $699.95 you can get the 9' 5wt Zephrus Ultralite with Hardy's lifetime warranty, superior build quality, and all the incredible performance attributes mentioned above. Scott claims that this gives their rods better strength and we cannot argue with this as we see very few Scott rods broken. A sliding band and wide locking ring is used that is easy to grip and seemed to lock up well. Heavy, slower action rods never perform well. Of course it is six inches shorter too. In all, this is an extremely attractive rod. Long distance was hopeless. Accuracy is good, just not great. It also sits dead last in our Fun to Fish category. The Pure is unquestionably one of the best looking rods in our Shootout, with some of the best craftsmanship. I realized last week just how spoiled I am to have the South Fork of the Snake River in my backyard. The best rods in this category are almost always the lightest in swing weight, especially if you are doing a lot of false casting when fishing dry flies. Like the K2, no hook keeper is used, which I miss on a 4-weight. A contrasting dark composite cork ring is used at the top of the grip. Ive fished with Howard here, on our Montana Spring Creeks, and better understand how and why he came up with these designs. Starting at under $700 and offered in weights 2-5, the Zephrus Ultralite provides performance equal to or exceeding other rods priced much closer to the $1,000-mark. The fancy burl wood insert just jumps out at you with its striking color lots of red and orange mixed in very attractive. The Pure is a brand new rod from Winston. What is a cheap rod like this doing up here with all the far higher priced rods, many of which cost $700more? Performance at 40 feet: 18.5 points out of 20. The Sage X is light in overall weight, butfarheavier the most in swing weight. I thought the larger, wider single ring on the Helios 3F was much easier to grip and seemed to lock up better. This is a sharp looking rod. For those of you wondering if the Hardy Zephrus is different from its predecessor, the Hardy Zenith: It is. Keep in mind that what you will read here are only our opinions. In our 2018, 8-weight Shootout the Q finished in the middle of the pack, but the 8-weight had a swing weight that was pretty good, while here as a 4-weight, the swing weight was one of the worst. The big reason it didnt do better than middle of the pack was the action. The skeleton reel seat is a gray anodized double uplocking with a dark gray laminated wood insert. It tracks well and I was getting very nice loops and good control, especially at mid to longer distances. The Galvan reels have been one of our favorite fly reels, and the slightly larger T-5 won our last 5/6 weight Reel Shootout. The components are not in the same class as the Helios 3F, but that is to be expected considering the price. Swing weight is on the heavier side and this hurt the performance to some degree. Performance at 40 feet: 19.5 points out of 20. Notably light. #4 (Tie) Thomas and Thomas AVANTT 86#4 $845.00. Good, just not great. Not much feel with all that swing weight, and the accuracy was pretty crappy too. The handle is a half wells western style grip with contrasting dark composite cork rings at both the bottom and top. To improve on the previous Zenith, which won our original 4-weight Shootout, Howard gave the Zephrus a slightly stronger butt and mid section as well as a softer tip. The best rods certainly need to handle this distance easily, but most anglers are buying a 4-weight rod for fishing at closer distances, which puts the emphasis on 25 to 40 foot casts. The accuracy is only fair. The perfect line: SA Amplitude Smooth Trout in WF-4-F. Matches the Zephrus in close in terms of casting accuracy and feel. This fast action produced extremely good feel and accuracy, especially at 25 feet. Well come out with you and give you some help to fine tune your casting stroke, or just help you with the basics. Usually takes 1-2 weeks. Accuracy isnt quite as good as the strongest rods, but Im surprised how well it hangs in there. Usually takes 1-2 weeks. Rods with heavier swing weights or ones with stiffer tips dont fare nearly as well.Ive often had a fish grab a halfway submerged fly in the surface film, when I havent been watching closely enough, and bolt off before I could react, snapping my 6x tippet. Part of the light swing weight can be attributed to the use of the superb REC nickel/titanium single-foot guides. Feedback. If you want to economize, look carefully at both the Hardy Shadow at $349.95 and the Orvis Recon at $429.00. The wraps are also black, nicely trimmed in light gray on the butt sections. Nothing Ive cast yet is better in terms of feel and accuracy from in close right out to 40 feet. A black anodized double uplocking skeleton seat is used with an unusual x-pattern design and a laminated wood insert. Hardys Zenith rods, discontinued when the Wraith and Zephrus lines were introduced a few years ago, are among some of the most-loved sticks in recent memory. orvis recon. The guide wraps are in blue with some silver trim on the butt. Awesome! Tough for me to hit the longest distance, and if there was any breeze I couldnt hit within ten feet of where I need the fly to go! In making the deflection chart, we first put up some white butcher paper on the wall. Performance at 40 feet 20 points available. Id like to see Howard Croston re-design this rod with a softer tip. The stiff tip didnt allow me much feel but the accuracy was decent. For guides, there is a hook keeper followed by a single SiC stripping guide, then hard chrome snake guides. The best Korean built rods now rival what is produced here in the US. Guides start with a hook keeper, then a single titanium SiC stripping guide, followed with our favorite nickel/titanium snake guides that are flexible but unbreakable. Pretty good, but not quite as accurate or as much feel as with the Shadow. Hardy has given us another magical rod that produced an absolutely stunning performance to blow away all the contenders. Performance at 25 feet: 18.0 points out of 20. The craftsmanship was excellent and it performed very well for me, especially at 40 feet, where I was getting beautiful tight loops and very good accuracy. The epoxy coatings were excellent. Very nice! For this 4-weight Shootout, we decided to make the short distance 25 feet, the mid-distance 40 feet, and the longest distance 60 feet. For most of my fishing with a 4-weight rod in critical conditions Im using one of our 12-foot leaders down to a 5X or 6X tippet, but in the Shootout we stick with 4X Rio Powerflex as a tippet in order to minimize breaking off the yarn indicator. The handle is a half wells design and the quality of the cork is decent better than what we saw on the Loop Q and the TFO rods. Here is a new rod that has not appeared in any of our previous Shootouts. The action seems about right and Im getting nice loops. The amount of power seems to be about right, and it performed best at the longer distances where I could punch it hard without throwing tailing loops. The Zephrus was able to turn over our 12-foot hand-tied leaders with ease. The finished blanks are then shipped back to G. Loomis, where the rods are assembled, wrapped and finished at the G. Loomis factory in Woodland Washington. The blank is finished in a medium brown with brown wraps that complement the blank. Build quality and reel seat We simply place each rod horizontally on the scale, read the weight and round it off to one tenth of an ounce. The JXP is also very stiff. Below the final results charts we give you the exact repair charges for each manufacturer. Sage could improve the MODs swing weight by using the more expensive nickel/titanium guides instead. item 8 Hardy Zephrus Double Handed DH Sintrix AWS Fly Rod 13'6' #7/8 4 Pieces +Warranty Hardy Zephrus Double Handed DH Sintrix AWS Fly . Performance at 60 feet: 6.5 points out of 10. In fact the JXP had one of theheaviestswing weights in our Shootout, tied with the IMX Pro and Clearwater. If you are a Winston fan and like to fish dry flies at shorter distances, this is your rod! This is a test that anyone can duplicate. Performance at 60 feet: 8.8 points out of 10. For $699.95 you can get the 9 5wt Zephrus Ultralite with Hardys lifetime warranty, superior build quality, and all the incredible performance attributes mentioned above. In this Shootout, we again used the Scientific Anglers lines, which we have found to cast better and last longer than other brands. Hardy uses a comfortable half wells, western style handle and the quality of the cork is superb. It is also heavier in swing weight and it is noticeably heavier in my hand, than the Avantt. You call in and incur a credit card of $100 but you get a brand new rod in 3-4 days. Leaders are a critical element in making accurate presentations and fooling spooky trout. The Recon was much better. 9 ft, 6 weight tip appears to have been re-wrapped- Thanks for looking at my auction. The uplocking black anodized skeleton reel seat utilizes a single ring that is easy to grip and lock down. Inexpensive rods built in both Korea and China are surprisingly good. T&T also uses a stack of thinner cork rings and the quality of the cork is as close to perfect as you can get. Tracks beautifully with nice tight loops that are giving me great accuracy. These stiffer 4-weight rods require lines that are slightly heavier than a standard AFTMA 4-weight line. We knew it would be good when the Pure won an award for the Best New Freshwater Rod at the 2018 IFTD show in July. hardy zenith. Performance at 40 feet: 19.7 points out of 20. Performance at 60 feet: 7.0 points out of 10. But there are a lot of good reasons. Finally, we trace the outline of the bend of the rod, first in pencil and then in different colored sharpies. #19. You know it has power when the rod almost effortlessly shoots line. We deleted our Perfect 4 performance category, since it seemed redundant, given the fact that we give you our opinions for our favorite 4-weights in the Fun to Fish, got to have category. To appreciate this rod, you need to see it in the sunlight. Some people might consider high priced rods status symbols. They have to if they want to sell. I do like the fast action, just not the heavy swing weight, which is far heavier than the Douglas DXF. Out long the K2 seemed to hold its own with the Recon, and it was better than either the Shadow or DXF. But this power and the stiffer tip hurt the performance in close, where it is similar to the Avantt but not nearly as good as the Zephrus, Pure or Helios 3F. I think that the vague feel I was getting hurt here. and they examine it. The result is often that the cheap outfit is mothballed, sold on e-bay or handed down to one of the kids. It has a larger swell than most rods, and the swell is set closer to the top of the grip, than most rods well forward of the center of the grip. For an 86 rod, the Zephrus packs a punch and can deliver casts out to 60 feet as easily as it can at 25 or 40. With any breeze at all, Im dead. Then it will cast and perform much better. . This rod gives me a nice light feel in hand, and Im getting good loop control combined with plenty of power and good accuracy. Its medium action is far slower than the Recon or their H3F, and it didnt perform nearly as well, especially at 25 feet. Now Im getting nice tight loops, and the rod tracks very well with better feel and accuracy. The action of these two rods is very different. In all the rods of any manufacture weve sold with these guides, we have yet to see one break! They are used to throw nymph rigs, hopper/dry droppers, small streamers and some dry flies, although this is probably my least used method. Just about any rod can turn over a 9-foot leader, but only the best casting rods can turn over a 12 footer at short distances. But that was about all I liked, other than the very light overall weight that earned it a perfect score. But when I need to reach out and make casts at 60-70 feet, as I often do fishing bigger rivers like the Missouri, the Zephrus has tons of power on tap to get the job done. The rods rated 9.5 rods had a $50 fee. Then we progressed to the mid-priced rods and finally the least expensive rods. I was tempted to give it a perfect score for craftsmanship. What is the Asquith doing way down near the bottom of this Shootout when it won our recent 8-weight Shootout!? The tips on the faster rods bend more. Its slower action means slower line speed, but thats relative to the norm in todays industry. But the Avantt and Helios 3F are far better. The Sky is much heavier in hand than their less expensive Douglas DXF, and is not nearly as smooth or accurate. Now it tracks perfectly and Im getting nice tight loops. The medium fast action of the Recon is very similar to the Helios 3F and this is one reason it performs so well. NUMBER OF PIECES: 4. Shipping isfrom their US warehouse, usually takes 2 weeks. The front half of the reel seat where the reel foot is held in placeis all cork. Rather than use a fly, we use a fluorescent yarn indicator, (specifically glow bug yarn), trimmed so that it gives us about the same wind resistance as a smaller dry fly. Its perhaps a little heavy in swing weight, and this as well as its stiffness, hurt its score at 25 feet. Hardy Zane Rod. The logo-imprinted cork in the tube lid is a nice touch, and metal caps over the ferrules gives a little extra love to a sometimes vulnerable part of the rod. The epoxy coatings on the guides are top notch. #24. In addition it will cost you $15 or more to ship your rod in for repair or have your local dealer do it for you. The tracking isnt as tight as something like the Sage X or Orvis Helios 3, but its pretty damned close. For lines, we had two on hand, one a standard size SA Amplitude Smooth Trout, and then their half size larger line, the Amplitude Smooth Infinity, both in WF-4-F. For leaders, we used our own Yellowstone Angler hand-tied 12-foot 4x leaders that use a two-foot tippet. Stiff, slower action rods are NOT what you are looking for in a 4-weight, where accurate, delicate presentations are the keys to success. The blank itself is a deep burgundy color, with dark gray wraps. Nice tight loops and good control. Rods that were very light in swing weight like the Zephrus, Avantt and Helios 3F blew the X away in both feel and performance. The reel seat is a single uplocking skeleton seat in anodized gray that has a very attractive burled wood insert. Ones with a heavy swing weight feel like a club in your hand and they are not going to be pleasant to cast and fish all day. The Avantt tied the Pure for the only perfect scores in Craftsmanship. This is a soft rod, and that gave it good marks in the light tippet protection category, but its performance distance scores were lackluster. Performance at 40 feet: 19.5 points out of 20. The epoxy coatings on the guides were excellent. Casting against the Scott G series it felt about equal, and better than the Asquith. A good 5-weight rod, which is definitely one of the most versatile you can have in your quiver, just wont match one of the top 4-weights when it comes to making delicate presentations, or achieving that ultimate drag free drift with a thinner fly line. The new $700 offering from Hardy puts itself in the conversation for best fly rod on the market, The future of fly fishing rests in our hands, Fishtamatic: Ditching the SLR for the iPhone, A small ship cruise of Alaska's Inside Passage, Win a Free Permit Trip: Land Permit Numro 1,000, As glaciers retreat, new streams for salmon, More evidence that releasing hatchery-reared native fish is harmful, Patagonia continues fight to protect Bears Ears with interactive film series, Review: Shell 583Wh Portable Power Station, Redington releases new WRANGLER fly rod + combo kit, Rig Up Faster with Loon's New Rigging Foams, Guides Ask for Halt to Trinity River Restoration Efforts. The cork handle is too thin, (for most anglers). The color of the blank is a natural graphite gray, and only lightly sanded so you can still see the tape marks, much like the Scott rods. Good, just not great. Very nice feel with excellent accuracy at short distances. The very light swing weight confirms this. Its somewhat embarrassing for a $1000 rod to finish below one that costs only $198.00, but there are some good reasons for this. The double uplocking, gray anodized reel skeleton seat uses two rings that are easy to grip and lock up extremely well. Hardy Ultralite NSX DH Fly Rod. The color of this rod is an attractive olive, with the guides wrapped in dark brown. The accuracy was good but not as good as the DXF or all of the best rods. The guides start with one SiC stripping guide followed with very large diameter hard chrome snake guides. Performance at 40 feet: 19.0 points out of 20. Overall a very good performance. This is one of the best looking rods in our Shootout. A 3-weight fly rod can be great fun on windless days, but those days seem to be rare. 1stimpressions: Sweetest all-around 4-weight rod here. It is refreshing to see such a nice rod, at such a low price that is made here in the US, in Park Falls, Wisconsin. Anyone whos fished recent Hardy rods knows theyre on the faster end of the spectrum, and thats what I expected when I threw my first lawn casts. You can read about these warranty policies later in our Shootout. It was a little better than the Avantt here, but not as good as the H3F. However, nearly all manufacturers are charging a handling fee of $25-$100 to repair or replace your broken rod. T&T uses multiple coats to produce a finish that is simply beautiful.

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