This was going on in Michigan in the 70s that i know of.I am sure these methods migrated to the great lakes in the 60s when salmon and steelhead were introduced.Our only native salmonid are lake and brook trout which are char.Anglers for the most part like to experiment.Several techniques can evolve in different places at the same time .I never saw many people flyfishing growing up but saw lots of folks using flyrods with spinning reels on them.I take the Colorado reel to be those sideways spinning reels?I have seen many but had no idea what they were used for.Interesting thread,My great gramps was born in 1898 and we would fish for fat rockbass every mothers day when the family got together in their little river town.Looking back i guess taking me was a good excuse to hit the creek for the run.Just a minnow and a hook on light line.

Until you get to Joe Fisher's influence on Hardy - tired of shipping blanks across the Atlantic, in the late 60s he built a rod plant in California and shipped that to Alnwick -
traditional British rods are the parabolic inverse of the type rod tapers I've been talking about on this thread. Hoping to see example rods built up, and maybe even pique the interest of forum members and rod builders.
Traditional British rods don't flex in the tip, flex greatly over their long mid into equally soft butt sections. Traditional British rods behave much like the traditional fast-tip dedicated spinning rods - even UL spinning rods - most of us grew up with - many of those are great rods (see the masthead photo), but different from the type rods I've been posting, Curtis posted, etc.

The typical parabolic spinning rod taper makes for a rod with a narrow range of lure and line weight. The progressive fly rod taper built as an XUL rod results in a very wide range of lure weights, beginning almost at zero, while still protecting the lightest line - tippet.
Thanks again Tom, for showing those videos of Joe R's variations on snap cast, beginning both above and below the rod tip.

And since the page needs a photo, here's a Great wrong-type-of-rod to fit this discussion - it happens to be a Phillipson epoxite ES registered matched with Hardy's ball-bearing Exalta.


Even this 5' Cortland C2000 UL has most of its flex toward the bottom with a comparatively fast tip (and 4th model CAP).

thanks for posting - would love to see rod photos - hardware, guide layout, close-ups, etc.
Recoil guides are absolutely perfect for both fishing nylon/fluoro tippet and fly-casting.
I'm curious how someone would approach the guides question wanting to use UL braid (ceramic insert) and still be able to fly cast.

Joe's book doesn't even turn up on Abebooks or Amazon, meaning people who have their copy aren't letting them go.
I'm a bit surprised a book with that demand never got a second printing.
I would have bought it back then if I had dreamed these rods would become such a priority for me.

I don't know what threadlining is, but I do have a spinning rod with a soft tip that's more like a soft tip fly rod. It's a 7 1/2 ft Ted Williams for 4 - 6 lb test and lures to 1/4 oz, tobacco glass. I believe it may be from before the Sears association with the Ted Williams name. A lot of fun to catch fish on that thing. I've never tried casting a fly line with it but I bet it'd work great.

Found it, Fuji calls them Running Guides.
Those are actually the same guides my Japanese XUL rods use on the tip section, with K guides on the butt section - trick, then, is sizing them right for fly line, because my rods wouldn't pass a fly line in the tip section - they're sized for threadline.

that is just what I found with my build.. threw those bass bugs which weighed about nothing, tiny jigs with a single airgun lead pellet crimped and glued on for weight, etc. But it could also toss a half-ounce of carp bait, if pushed.

Found another pic of the rod in its second incarnation with ceramic guides and a big fat cork handle which I thought I liked, at that time, about 1980.



A brace of 3lb bass on 4lb line and the smallest Rapala made, 2g weight..
That was a private pond on a strawberry farm, never got to fish it but that once. Released a couple more, the farmer wanted some dinner so kept those..

Going a bit crazy here, the local pond got stocked last week so I snuck out early Sat with the light rods..



Same Mitchell 308 on a Fenwick Voyageur SF75-5, 6wt and 7.5'. This is a great light spin rod, threw the smallest Pins Minnow also 2g, a good distance with 4lb.
The other is a Zebco PS2 on a Daiwa spin/fly graphite rod, 2-6lb line and throws a 5wt well, with a little jig. The Daiwa was my only rod for a couple of years in the US but don't use it much anymore, dug it out since it fits the definition except for the graphite bit. Casting is a little superior to the Fenwick but I find I lose a lot of fish to thrown hooks on this rod, for some reason.
My suspicion is the graphite is just too quick and sensitive so I strike early..

The smaller one inhaled the minnow and was bleeding badly so killed it, then kept the bigger one and will turn them into smoked trout pate..

In a fit of cabin fever ordered a Shimano Trout One S60UL rod rated for 1-9g, using some money I got for working afterhours over a couple of weekends..

Of course from the ebay market, I knew there had to be others in the US who have discovered Japanese XUL rods,
and that turns out to be a really cool blog - with descriptions of Japanese XUL rods from a range of makers, and a loud echo on the rod taper I've been trying to get across.

Solid fish on these rods are actually more fun than on a fly rod, the extra added by the drag function of a good UL spinning reel (especially if the drag has a Pavarotti voice like the magnesium spool on my Shimano Vanquish).
In practice, they end up being stealthier and with longer reach than a fly rod. When I fished fly rod with Teeny line, and XUL side by side in Jan, they both had their places, mostly the fit and difference of change-up rotation - but the fly rod was basically 20% function, and the XUL 80%.

In venerable reels, the Daiwa 700C that Alex is using in my OP is the reel most every threadliner wants to acquire.
Because of the small arbor, most fill the spool most of the way with backing and finish with working tippet.

In new reels, the micro end is hands-down Tica Cetus SS500 (the SS grade has the most ball bearings v. bushings, plus a metal spool - and plastic spare spool).

The next step are 1000-2000 size reels. In new reels, these have the advantage of shallow spool (large spool arbor) that really helps threadline management, allowing you to fill the spool to the brim.
I will say right now my Cetus has fished 10 years in the salt with proper care.
Don't think you'd have a worry with any of the Tica reels in the 1000-1500 size for the economy end.
Likewise, Shimano Sahara, Daiwa Legalis. Stepping up Shimano and Daiwa model ranges usually buys smoother reels with longer life.
One like-minded UL spinfisherman on youtube put in a plug for the Okuma Epixor XT20M; though lightweight, this is a larger capacity than most of the reels I'm listing.

If casting distance is your goal, long-spool-stroke is the next-level feature you want.
The economy end is the Tica Libra SX1500.
The step up are the new models of Shimano Stradic (FL), Japan market '19 Vanquish and top-end '18 Stella.
Also look at the new 2020 Daiwa models, which are coming back strong with this feature.
Tough to beat a Shimano Stradic FL1000 for value at the $200 price point, and the closeout prices on the '15 model Stradic FK1000 make it a great buy.


The Japan-only Vanquish is the Engineered Super-UL-reel. It has all the features of the '18 Stella in a yet-lighter package and engineered for the lowest inertia (lowest moving mass) of any reel, ever - maximum sensitivity.
At the in-between price point, the '16-model Stradic Ci4+1000 doesn't have the long-stroke spool of the '19 Stradic/Vanquish/'18-Stella, but light, smooth, and probably the next-lowest inertia reel made - these are also closing out, and the $150 ebay listings are 40% below retail.

then there are all of Erne St. Clair's books

Quill fishing with line stoppers can be a lot of fun - did that once with my daughter and a stubcaster.
(and of course began them both with quills, line stoppers, and grasshoppers on UL rods, including Eagle Claw and Airex - my youngest was still 2 when she caught her first fish)


I guess when you get down to it, nymph fishing is just another cane pole variation.

been swapping e-mails this morning with Chris, whom you linked with the Shimano UL rod.
He seems surprised by the interest in salt XUL rods, and has clearly built up an inventory of trout XUL rods.
Chris linked to this nice post on his blog, which also show Joe Robinson and the snap cast.
https://www.finesse-fishing.com/daiwa-iprimi-60xul.html

Not so much surprised by the interest in salt XUL rods but rather surprised that there is so much more interest in the JDM XUL salt water rods than in the JDM XUL fresh water rods.

Even among the guys fishing JDM saltwater rods, most of the interest seems to be in the ajing rods (designed to fish for aji, Japanese horse mackerel), which are extremely fast, tip flex rods rather than the mebaru rods (designed to fish for mebaru, relatively small sea bass) which are more mid flex.

There are Japanese rods that are very well suited to threadlining in that they are rated for line no stronger than 3 lb test (and Japanese 3 lb line actually breaks at 3 lb, which would make it much closer to US 2 lb line than 4 lb). Some are designed for salt water and some for fresh. The JDM rods that are the closest to the soft, full flex rods that Erne St. Clair used are fresh water rods designed for trout fishing in private pay-to-fish lakes (called "Areas," which are quite popular in Japan). Even among the Area rods, most are too fast to execute the snap casts that Erne St. Clair developed and Joe Robinson brought back from obscurity. A couple, though, are soft enough and full flex enough, if you can get the timing right. Of course, the timing is devilishly difficult (which I think is why no one does them today).

I like your song Whrlpool, Chris Stewart is a "New" member??? Ron, I was shocked at the price tag of a Vanquish.

Hi Chris,
The two Takamiya rockfish rods I bought 10 years ago are the 7'6" solid-tip XUL

and the faster tubular tip 7'9"

This was before Japan shopping was easy, and had to use noppin.com as a broker.
Bought these for my daughters for a dock/pier kidfish ritual catching nursery seatrout.
They fit perfectly, throwing the weightless bait rig that would put the girls into 40 nursery trout /hour between dinner and ice cream.

The other place they fit is matching the hatch on infinitesimally small baitfish - fishing smaller and farther than you would ever be able to on characteristic inshore rods, or even on a fly rod. The rod length and fast mid is about ballistics - every 20% increase in lure release velocity doubles your cast distance.
I kept pushing them farther on bigger seatrout (speckled trout - spotted weakfish) and one night in a canal sight-fished 22" and 23" specs.
Turned my buddy and his wife onto these in far south Texas, they went right to the computer and ordered a matching Major Craft ST XUL on ebay.
I even landed a double with 17" and 19" specs on the 7'6" XUL with 4-lb copolymer.

This year, for a little more reach in my salt niche, added the Korean Black Hole 8' UL

The way to look at "PE line" - the Japanese Gou kana - approximately 10 times the # is the line test, so the rod above is 3-10-lb.
And had a blast fishing its perfect salt niche 3 weeks ago (seems like an eternity now)

This is also the rod I feel confident-enough to take out on a kayak


Havent fished it yet, and most recently added the Yamaga Blanks 83 TZ/Nano

On local lakes I have long used long -- 7-8' -- whippy, spinning rods with a Penn UL reel and 4lb test Stren to take LMB with 4" strawberry colored "Do Nothing" worms on a 1/16 oz weedless worm jig hook.

Hordes of smaller bass and a decent number of 7-8 lb-ers have fallen prey to that setup. Even when the big guys dove into deep weed beds, the line scissored off the weeds which rose all around my float tube. And the fish just could not shake off those extra sharp light wire hooks and the flexible rod nagging them to the surface.

Hell, until now, i had not even known the Japanese had twigged to this game!

Heddonist