Been trying to dial a decent bass outfit for a while now. I have a shot shoulder so 7 and 8 weights can be an issue but i compensate by balancing them to my tastes etc. My current bass rods are phillipsons, a royal wand rwf86 7 weight, an r86 7 wt, and an mf86b 8 weight, which is the primary subject of this post. With my shoulder I am not booming anything 50 ft out there and i cast with a very slow stroke and like to feel my loops when casting. Furthermore, i like the control and roll cast ability of my other double tapers (406 dt5 and dt6) I was just wondering if anybody had experience with 7 and 8 weight double tapers abd whether they might be useful given my circumstances?

What Majicwrench said. At 50' or less, it makes no difference if it's a DT or WF. A 50' cast is 30' of line plus a leader and a rod length.

Also as he said, shorter rods will really help here.

In any case, your shoulder should not even know it was being used if you have your casting stroke tuned in with an efficient double haul. casts to 60' or 70' with a DT line should be like tapping a tack, not bashing a nail.

Cheers,
Graeme

Probably easier to find 7/8wt long belly wf lines than 7/8wt dt these days. The extra length heads might be just enough for your fishing distances.

depends on what you have on the end of the line.big hair or cork balsa bugs seem to benefit from a fatheaded wf bass bug taper.throwing an 8wt bass bug line on an 8ft heddon 8wt.my shoulder is not shot but not good.i backcast high and overhead.not by choice but conditions dictate because of high banks and vegetation.when the back cast starts to straighten as much up as back.i haul hard and lean forward.puts a good bend in the rod,50 60 feet even in a headwind,for streamers bunny strips etc i use a gowdy para 8'6" with a 7wt bass taper.both rigs do what i use them for well,not well vice versa.

By bass rig, i do mean bass bugs, poppers, and weighted streamers run 406 on most of my rods, use wf7, wf8 wf6, dt6, and dt5 on my phillipsons. Just debating whether it is worth tge investment to convert the wf7 and wf8 to dt. And yes, i cast and throw sidearm wherever possible, 3/4 if i have to, but even when fishing spinning gear from a kayak, i still cast side arm with an uppercut. At this point, its a value play. Is it worth 70 bucks to convert my 406 wf7 or 8 to dt of the same. Wjat do you mean by carrying dt for change. Ups?

If you have WF there is no real reason to invest in DT.

Cept I always feel like I done good when I finally turn a DT around and start over w a brand new line!

What you're trying to do with a bass rig is very different from what you're doing with a dry fly.
With a dry fly, you shouldn't be shooting line, but handling long lengths of line in the air for a delicate presentation.
Thought I'll add, I've shot a DT to the end of the line on Heddon 2f cane.

The old Rocket taper was a short-belly line made for shooting distance, and was the bass bug line.

With long-belly lines in the salt, the goal is shooting max distance on that single, important cast. They're actually not made for fishing, but for shooting a single sight-cast to max distance.

Fishing, you'd like to be able to get your speed up on a single back-cast, then shoot to your fishing distance - over and over. The point of a bass bug taper.

For max distance, I go subsurface to a Teeny line, T130 etc. It does exactly what I described. A roll-cast to bring everything to the surface, a single back-cast to bring up line speed, and shoot.
In the salt, I've consistently shot my TS250 out to 140', leader, line and backing (not on a single back-cast, but with a couple to bring up line speed, and with a shooting basket).