So I am finally a member of the Barclay club. As some of you know, I build my own rods. Chris was gracious enough to sell me a cosmetically blemished 7 ft 6 wt "lil stiffy" blank. I finally put the rod through its paces today. Chris, as many of you know, us a modest guy. The fact of the matter is that this blank is nothing less that the most versatile fly rod I have ever used. I originally took Chris up on this opportunity because of the lil stiffys reputation of being able to throw big flies out of a 7 foot package (perfect for tight new england pond fishing). I first tried it with the recommended 6 wt sa titan long, (210 grains aka 8 wt) and was making 45 ft casts with poppers, deer hair divers etc. From there I decided to try other lighter lines. So I walked it back to a sa anadro 6 (200 grains) Titan 5 (185 grains) 406 dt 6 (160 grains) sa VPT 5 (140 grains) and SA ART 4 wt (120 grains). Finally, just for $$$$$ and giggles I cast the SA Titan 7 (240 grains) I use for stripers on my Cts affinity x 8 wt, just to see what would happen. First of all, this is fast glass, the rod casts more like graphite and loves a double haul. It likes shorter heads, so the anadro with its 60 ft head got a bit sluggosh. What made this rod amazing though was the way it handled every line I put in it. In the lower weights, (4 and 5) I was throwing size 12 and 14 Adam's 60 ft with deadly accuracy out of a 7 ft rod. Presentation was everything you would expect out of a rod you would find marked 4 or 5 wt. On the ultra high end of the spectrum, the Titan 7, I was throwing the diver pictured below 35 ft in a crosswind. The rod never felt like it was ready to collapse, it simply became a shorter range rod. Similarly, the Titan 6 showed good range and accuracy with big weighted wooly buggers and clousers. Yet despite all this capacity, I felt every head shake from the sunfish I caught. So where I used to go to a pond with 4 different rods, now I can take one rod and 4 different reels for the same effect. The lil stiffy is a masterpiece and far more of a rod than Chris ever made it out to be.
Posted: 11 Apr 2021, 09:08 • 
