I don't think rod actions were thought of in a particularly different way, but they are marketed in different ways; thus, that very well thought out catalog reflects his thinking and marketing concept. The angling tips convey timeless wisdom; the rod descriptions reflect emerging interest in "light" as midge fishing became popular and as "light" became a popular word in marketing--partly due to the dawn of the graphite era. Those descriptions are more marketing-influenced, though, and very cleverly done. Sales strategies have influenced rod/action descriptions and reflect a lot of trends, but the underlying concepts haven't really changed. Here is a more or less generic "default" description from about the same time period, the author having only information to provide, without a particular sales slant (I would guess that the maker above could plug virtually every one of the rods into these descriptive categories and would recognize them immediately. Nevetheless, when selling fly rods, he wouldn't want to say "This 8' rod has a medium action just like most others do." )
from Compete Outdoors Encyclopedia, multiple editions 1972-1980, an Outdoor Life Book edited by Vin T Sparano (a mainstream source, but in so far as one can generalize about how rod actions were thought of, about as good as any. Someone trying to sell them, of course, had to think of a way to distinguish his product, one of which would be to describe it differently):
Compare that to the contemporary description at this link, that I noticed this morning as it was contributed to another discussion:
http://www.ctsfishing.com/flytermsexplained.php
Posted: 16 Nov 2009, 12:35 • 
