El Duderino,
I fished the 8wt with the Rio Pike/Musky WF8F line this evening. I used some really big chunky flies, I noticed that when I fished this line around 30 feet away or more, it was good, the rod was accurate and handled it well. Inside of 30 I had some not so great casts. Either I didn't have enough line out, the big fly was getting wet, or the story the lady told me at the ramp about a guy having his catalytic converter stolen there last week had me distracted. Maybe all 3?
I'm new to these types of lines. Keep in mind the whole head is only 30 ft long and it weighs 300 grains. Appropriate for the big flies I want to use on it, it would have been fine closer with a normal sized deer hair fly.
Hard to say what normal line I would prefer on it, the SA WF8F pike line I've been mentioning feels on the light side to me. It also casts well on a Winston B2X 9' 8wt that I always underlined and never even tried an 8wt on. I always used the Triangle Taper as a reference line on trout rods in the past, guess I just got caught up in the bass bug throwing idea. Should have started there first.
I saw an article where someone took the new 8WT fishing for redfish (can't find it now) and sure seemed to like it.
Found it, just scroll down a little:
https://thefiberglassmanifesto.blogspot ... r-cfo.htmlI've never fished for reds but I've done my fair share of striped bass fishing and I probably have an intermediate 8 or 9 that would work well on it. Here in the northeast I would fish hours and hours blind casting in the dark for stripers. I think this would work very well. Certainly would be easier on me than certain lighting fast torture devices.
Rod Weights
I weighed the 3 rods.
866-3 3.49 ounces
866-4 4.37 ounces
888-4 5.33 ounces
I suspect most of the weight difference is in the new full barrel reel seat which are very nice quality. The skeleton seats on the 3 piece rods weigh very little. The heavier the seat the lighter the reel and vice versa to get you to a happy balance.
I've never seen or handled the 3 piece 8wt. The 888-4 is noticeably more tip heavy than the 4 piece 6wt in hand. I have Lamson Remix reels on each, on the 6wt I have a size 2 (5+) on the 8wt I have a 3.5 (7+) The 6wt feels well balanced, the 8wt could use a little more weight but its close enough for me and these are generally light reels.
I weighed the butt and tip sections. Note the 8wt has significantly larger metal stripping guides.
866-4 Butt section: 2.85 ounces, 3 tip sections: 1.51 ounces
888-4 Butt section: 3.175 ounces, 3 tip sections: 2.15 ounces
I liked fishing the 866-4 best. I did have an appropriate 7wt fly on with the TT7wt line, it was really sweet. Not taking anything away from the 8wt, because I was chucking big stuff with it.
Hey @Darkwaters, have you cast the 888 - I have one on order but they are very slow to ship from the States.
I wondered if you had some comments on that model if you have cast or fished it.