Thoughts about taper design

I love to cast any bamboo rod.
I got more than fish doing that.
I mean that I really enjoy walking a river with my rods. Is not the same when for one cause or another I need to use another type of rod. There's something missing... At that times I need fish or I feel that my day was lost.
However when I use my bamboo rod I enjoy each cast, each looking and each fish.



As a caster, I enjoy every cast. Everything that my rod turns into a loop, but as a fly fisherman I need a little more... One of the learns that I got from more than 35 years fishing bamboo rods is that I want my fly 80 per cent of the time, in the water. I look for rods that let me do that in no more than one or two cast. So when is time for taper design, I look for 3 basics.

1) Balance
2) Response
3) Confidence



1) Balance not only point into a good weight proportion, also I look for it when I need short or longer cast and also when I need a slow cast or a fast one. This make that your rod that is heavier than a "G", feels lighter at the end of the day.
"Bamboo rods are heavier than "G" rods". I´m tired to heard about this conclusion. What you get from one and what for the other? How many false cast you need to do with one and how many with the other? When you take a fish... hows performs one and how the other?
I got my own thought, yes bamboo rods are heavier but... at the end of the day I´m not tired as that days when I fish "G" when I finished not only tired but bored also.

2) Response = power transference. This is not but to obtain exactly what I request to it. Sometimes, specially when we are in the middle of a "hatch" our targets are moving from one point to another, here the angles change, the wind change and sometimes we need to change our cast in the air. If you can do it, that is response... Short or long, slow or fast, right or left just in seconds...

3) Confidence is what push me to get one rod over another to fish different kinds of waters. This is not a property owned by the rod, we acquire this feeling after many years of use or just in a minute. This depends in the communion between you, your rod and the selection of the right stuff, line, leader and fly.

More about tapers design?