I mentioned this was one of my projects earlier in the thread. Finally got it off the bench. A 9' 6wt Steffens graphite rolled by Shane Gray. Wrapped in chestnut with old gold tipping. It's my best Scott G Series knock off. Paired with a Red Truck Diesel 5/6 reel and a re-purposed Cabela's rod case covered over with a Steffens patch and a TFM Retro Fly patch
I have a goal of passing the FFI casting certification, and I want to do it on a rod I built. So I built this for that purpose. I paired it with an SA 6wt XXD that I scored NOS off ebay. My understanding is that his is a previous iteration of the expert distance line.
It was a nice day so I went out and did some practice casting. Actually set up my frisbees and measured out 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60 feet.
At 20 feet, being a 9ft rod with a 9ft leader there is only 2 ft of fly line out of the tip top. Try to cast off the tip, but it's a graphite rod and not really meant to cast a mere 20 feet. Not a lot of feel and hard to keep accurate.
At 30 feel began to get some nice loops and starting to feel the rod work, though still not a ton.
A 40 feet, the rod really begins to hit its stride. And if you think about it, there finally starts to be close to 30 feet of fly line out, and you are getting in the range of the AFTMA line ratings
At 50 feet, the rod continues to really do well. I like it a lot.
I can hit 60 feet, and my best was 68 feet. I lose my accuracy, and I still have some work to do on my distance casting.
At any rate, fun to get out and lawn cast on a nice day. I know what I need to work on, and feeling good about how the build turned out.