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Jason Lucas and His Fly Fishing Advice

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When I was a kid around 12 years old or so, I believed that Sport's Afield fishing editor, Jason Lucas (1950's) was a god. I read every fishing article I could find written by him. I remember seeing in print his advice on what fly rod/reel/line combo should be used for various types of fly fishing. His advice was that a fisherman should use the same fly fishing combo for fishing for small sunfish and up to larger tarpon and such; and that combo was "a rod not an inch over 8 feet, and perhaps a few inches shorter," a 6 weight line, and a good quality single action reel.

 

As I grew up and expanded my fishing horizons, I began to question this fishing guru's reasoning. I have since fished all over the country for many different species of fish and I found that the 8 foot 6 weight was just overkill for small sunfish and fighting and landing larger salt water specimens with this rig was making the job more difficult than it had to be. I realize that Lee Wulff liked to catch large fish on dainty 6 foot rods, but I have never been so inclined and I doubt that very many other fly fisher persons leaned that way either.

 

So, my point is, and reason for posting this blurb is to ask if anyone remembers reading Jason Lucas' fly fishing advice and if so, do you remember his logic for suggesting it? I do remember that Mr. Lucas was quite an experienced bass fisherman, and I remember reading many more articles on bass fishing with conventional gear, yet I also remember seeing very few on fly fishing.

Joe

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I was born in 1961 so....no, I don't remember him. I'm no expert but I have 7 rods from 3 wt to 16 wt. I love them all. Catching my big laker on a 5/6 wt was really a blast though.

 

20180720-085023-L.jpg

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I was reading Tapley and Trueblood and bent on obtaining a spinning outfit in the '60s and just out terrorizing the woods with slings and rocks in the '50s, so, I don't recall reading Lucas much.

But given that he fished bass (Uncle would pass on a SA occasionally) and the time frame I would guess he talked about fiberglass and my experience with glass rods would say that 7'6"-8' is a sweet spot for their design in 6-7 weight. 6-7wt was by far the widest used line in those days from all that I have read.

I happen to like his one rod for all notion, although the rod would be a compromise for some situations, there is no sense in buying a rod reel and line that will be used only once for a single outing, unless you are one of the budget free. If all you fish are brookies, and you never intend to fish for anything else-sure his rod is too heavy and by the same token if all you will ever fish is salt water stripers his rod would be to light- but if you are a run of the mill blue collar type that fishes a dozen times a year (SA readers) and plan one trip to fish trout and one to fish river small mouth and the other fishing is random as when and what- then his recommendation is pretty good. Until the mid '80s I never knew anyone that had more than two rods. Did that start with TV bassers?

I have an unmarked glass 8 1/2 foot 8wt that I would try any fish on- even though a 4#+ smb is the biggest it's seen so far, it is excellent for trout and greatly reduces the number of casts needed.

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When I was a kid around 12 years old or so, I believed that Sport's Afield fishing editor, Jason Lucas (1950's) was a god. I read every fishing article I could find written by him. I remember seeing in print his advice on what fly rod/reel/line combo should be used for various types of fly fishing. His advice was that a fisherman should use the same fly fishing combo for fishing for small sunfish and up to larger tarpon and such; and that combo was "a rod not an inch over 8 feet, and perhaps a few inches shorter," a 6 weight line, and a good quality single action reel.

 

As I grew up and expanded my fishing horizons, I began to question this fishing guru's reasoning. I have since fished all over the country for many different species of fish and I found that the 8 foot 6 weight was just overkill for small sunfish and fighting and landing larger salt water specimens with this rig was making the job more difficult than it had to be. I realize that Lee Wulff liked to catch large fish on dainty 6 foot rods, but I have never been so inclined and I doubt that very many other fly fisher persons leaned that way either.

 

So, my point is, and reason for posting this blurb is to ask if anyone remembers reading Jason Lucas' fly fishing advice and if so, do you remember his logic for suggesting it? I do remember that Mr. Lucas was quite an experienced bass fisherman, and I remember reading many more articles on bass fishing with conventional gear, yet I also remember seeing very few on fly fishing.

Joe

 

You have to remember that rods were heavier and fiberglass was in its infancy for fly rods in the early 1950s. Lamiglass was not founded until 1952 and it built both solid fiberglass and tubular fiberglass rods. I know that even in the late 1960's the Fenwick Ferralite 8 ft 7 wt rod was the recommended rod for trout and when the first graphite Fenwick HMGs came out in the mid 1970s, the recommended trout rod was an 8 ft 6 wt rod.

 

I think Lucas' recommendation were based on the fact that those early rods were heavy and with a heavy rod, it is both more difficult cast a heavy rod and load the rod with a lighter fly line. The mass of the rod is what you feel and and the line adds very little to the load you feel compared to a modern light graphite rod. So heavier lines were required to load these heavier rods so you could feel the load. That is my theory.

 

There is a great interview with Jim Green that has been republished on-line by Sexyloops. Jim Green as most of you know is the originator of the first flexible ferrule, the Fenwick Ferralite tip over butt ferrule that has become the standard for most composite fly rods.

In the interview, Jim Green has some very perceptive observations about the "feel" of bamboo fly rods. Those same observations hold true for fiberglass fly rods as well.

"You see I am an old Bamboo man, I have always had a love for Bamboo. It's amazing when you think about it, you take all these materials, Bamboo, Glass, Graphite in some cases Boron. The most important part of a rod is not what it is made of. What's more important is the action of the rod. If you take a good Bamboo rod with the correct action, they might say it's a Bamboo action, but there is no such thing as a Bamboo action. It might be a Bamboo feel, but not a Bamboo action. The action of a rod is just the way it happens to bend under stress. So you can make a bamboo rod that will bend under stress a certain way, and you can make a glass rod that will bend under stress a certain way, and then a graphite rod, they all are going to cast good you know? Sure one is going to be lighter than the other, of course that's what seems to be a big selling point, people like them light....

The feel is there because it has weight and swing. They call that a Bamboo action, it is not an action, it is a feel. The action like I said before is the way a rod bends. You can take all three: Bamboo, Glass and Graphite, and if they have a good action, they will all cast very well, but Bamboo will feel different because it is heavier. If you want to duplicate the action and feel of a Bamboo rod you have to build it solid, so it will have a different kind of swing to it. "

Jim Green

So Jim Green associates rod "feel" with "fly rod action + mass distribution." I think he is 100% correct. Not only is he correct because he is Jim Green, he is correct because mass is an intimate part of momentum and energy, two key factors in how a fly rod performs and feels.

By extension then, one must consider the materials that were at hand back in the early 1950's. What fly fishers were "used" to was the feel of a bamboo rod. What fiberglass rod companies tried to do was to imitate the feel of a bamboo rod. There were very few bamboo rod longer than 8 ft and so I think that is what the early fiberglass rod makers tried to imitate.

When we consider other common everyday things from the 1950's vs today, we don't ask why they had to change oil every 1000 miles or why tires wore out after several thousand miles. Similarly, technology has marched on in fly fishing.

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I am so glad my memory sucks.

Not being able to remember frivolous information means I don't have "conundrum" question like this. tongue.png

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I am so glad my memory sucks.

Not being able to remember frivolous information means I don't have "conundrum" question like this. tongue.png

 

Your comment is probably one of the most frivolous comments I have read on this forum. (Many of your other past comments have been pretty frivolous as well). My post was not to ask about reasons for using or not using specific rods and lines for specific fish. My question was to ask about Jason Lucas. It seems not many here remember him. I think most of the posts above are pretty accurate concerning rods and line weight and I already knew this. These points may be the reasoning behind Jason Lucas' recommendations, or they may not be. Because Jason is no longer with us, we may never know.

Joe

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I don't think he was the only writer to espouse that size or the one rod idea. There was a widespread desire for an all arounder rod.

Surely as prolific a writer as Lucas was and number of years he was in the business, he must have expanded on his reasons at some point.

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Your comment is probably one of the most frivolous comments I have read on this forum. (Many of your other past comments have been pretty frivolous as well).

Joe

 

Thank you. Thank you, very much. I try. biggrin.png

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The transitional period of the 1960-70s from bamboo to glass caused a lot of fly fishing pundits to evolve their view of the ideal fly rod. In the 1960s, fly lines were characterized by their diameters, not their weight - HDH versus 6 weight. Fly rods were judged by their actual weight and not so much by their action. Lucas wrote Lucas on Bass Fishing in 1947. I have a 3rd edition (1962) in which he wrote in the chapter Fly Tackle for Bass - Selecting:

 

Of what length should a bass rod be? Nine feet seems the leading choice with some preferring one of eight and a half feet, and very few - generally strong men - choosing one running up to nine and a half. ...Incidentally, this is exactly the same rod, in all respects, that the great majority of men use for steelhead and other very large trout. Really there is no such thing as a bass fly rod; it is merely a modern, standard fly rod powerful enough for bass fishing.

 

In 1962, Lucas promoted and favored Dry Fly Action which by his description would equate to a medium-fast or mid-flex rod of today. He cautioned against the sharp taper - fast or tip flexas a tool for expert casting but not day-to-day anglers. He also was exceptionally clear that he did not favor wet fly action or parabolic action - soft or full flex. I have become convinced that there is no such thing as wet fly action; to me the wet fly rod, limberly bending all over, is just a very poor fly rod, not nearly as well fitted for wet-fly fishing as a rod with so called dry fly action. I have been saying this with variations for years. Indeed, when I find a man using a rod with wet-fly action, he is usually letting his fly wash downstream in the current, hardly attempting real casting; he has found he cant do it with that rod.

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I remember Jason Lucas very well. He did not write much about fly fishing; his forte was bait casting for bass. He had the longest cantilevered tackle box I ever saw; it was wooden and had about 6 cantilevered shelves on each side. The real fly fishing magazine writers of the day were Joe Brooks and A.J. McClane. Lee Wulff was big too but not in magazines.

 

Island Bob

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