Your lightest Ultralight combo

How small is your rod and how light is your line? It's not about the size of your tackle, but how you work it. Come share your Ultralight and Bait Finesse System (BFS) fishing success here!
gillchaser
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Your lightest Ultralight combo

Post by gillchaser » Wed Feb 04, 2015 2:22 pm

I got to wondering about how light one could go , putting together an Ultralight combo . After checking the factory published weights of several of my reels and rods , I found most of them fall into the 8-10 oz range for a combo .
Lightest would be my St Croix Premier 4'6" UL at 2oz paired with Shimano Symetre 500 FL at 6.1oz. Unless I pair it up with a Sienna 500 and I can drop another .1 oz .
Even the 7 foot rods only add about an ounce . Moving up to a 1000 size reel adds about an ounce to an ounce and a half .
Some awesome equipment is available these days . Long ways from my old 5 foot Shakespere spiral wrapped composite Rod and Garcia Mitchell 408 combo, that I still have . Gillchaser

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Re: Your lightest Ultralight combo

Post by gillchaser » Thu Feb 05, 2015 3:24 am

I ordered a two piece Daiwa Laguna 7' UL through Amazon and it actually showed up today well safe, packed well in a square cardboard box. :D maybe they're starting to wise up .
Anyway I decided to weigh the rod just to check it out . 4.1 oz . For now I'm pairing it up with my Shimano Stradic 1000FJ which weighs 7.5 oz for a total of 11.6 oz . I can get it down to around 9 ozs with a 500 size reel , but It won't balance as well and I'm counting on the larger spool to get me a little more distance when pond fishing from the bank .
BTW , yesterday afternoon I was able to take my St Croix 6'4" LF for a couple of hours pond fishing . It was overcast and in the upper 40's . I'm sure the water was at least as cold . I was surprised to catch about 10 half pounder size bluegill on a Rapala F3 . Some of them actually would slap at it on the surface . Gillchaser

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Re: Your lightest Ultralight combo

Post by gillchaser » Thu Feb 05, 2015 7:35 am

Took the Laguna out for a test fish this afternoon . I think it'll make a good drop shot rod . Doesn't feel like an UL . To be fair , the wind was gusting in the mid 30's , which affected the casting , but not the feel .
I may use it for long lining trolling for crappie . Not one I'd want spend the day casting with . Gillchaser

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Re: Your lightest Ultralight combo

Post by ematsuda » Thu Feb 05, 2015 8:21 am

I never weighed any of my setups but I would think it has to be my Okuma SST IM8 6' UL rod coupled to my Tica SB500. I don't use this setup much because I like to bring out the 7' SST/Symetre 1000 FL more often.

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Re: Your lightest Ultralight combo

Post by ultralight » Thu Feb 05, 2015 5:36 pm

6 1/2 foot custom rod plus Daiwa Luvias 1003. I think about 6.6 oz all in. Rod is 1 oz flat. Reel should be 5.6 oz.

UL

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Re: Your lightest Ultralight combo

Post by huchen » Thu Feb 05, 2015 10:50 pm

ultralight wrote:6 1/2 foot custom rod. Rod is 1 oz flat.
1 oz? What's that? A naked blank with the reel taped on it? What blank did you use? I guess a blank that length be it the highest modulus is still around half an ounce. The real seat though weighs around 1/2-3/4 oz. So what real seat did you use? Is it custom? As I thought that a fuji skeleton reel seat is more like 3/4 oz... Seven guides including the tip top?

Thanks.

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Re: Your lightest Ultralight combo

Post by gillchaser » Fri Feb 06, 2015 3:51 am

huchen wrote:
ultralight wrote:6 1/2 foot custom rod. Rod is 1 oz flat.
1 oz? What's that? A naked blank with the reel taped on it? What blank did you use? I guess a blank that length be it the highest modulus is still around half an ounce. The real seat though weighs around 1/2-3/4 oz. So what real seat did you use? Is it custom? As I thought that a fuji skeleton reel seat is more like 3/4 oz... Seven guides including the tip top?

Thanks.
LOL , I been searching and checking weights on components trying to put together a rod under two ounces that was over five feet long . I'm still searching :) .
I've got one home built on a 2wt. cut back Flyrod blank with a tape on handle , I need to weigh .
That's quite a feat to get a 6'6" rod that light .
Gillchaser

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Re: Your lightest Ultralight combo

Post by gillchaser » Fri Feb 06, 2015 4:04 am

I weighed the little rod made from a cutback flyrod blank . I cut the butt section , so it's a staggered ferrel with all the guides on the top half . It measures 4'11" and weighs 1.02oz . The handle is a slim cork flyrod type handle that I removed the rings and have been taping the reel to the forward part of the handle . I had intentions of replacing the handle with a cork Tennessee handle that will add a little more weight . Gillchaser

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Re: Your lightest Ultralight combo

Post by Lawaia » Fri Feb 06, 2015 4:10 am

I have a custom 4' 6" NFC rod made by Matt Davis the weighs 2.30 oz, coupled that with my Vanquish 1000S which is around 5.65 with a full spool of 4lb fireline, comes out to just around 7.95 to 8 ounces total rod and reel. I don't usually pair my 4'6 with a 1000 size reels, I usually have 500 sizes on my 4'6" rods but if you talking "lightest UL combo" that would be my lightest.

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Re: Your lightest Ultralight combo

Post by gillchaser » Fri Feb 06, 2015 4:31 am

I weighed a few of my smaller reels . My Shimano Symetre 500FL with line weighs 6.16oz , a Daiwa Spinmatic CZ 500T with line weighs 5.88 , my lightest I've found in my stable Is a Daiwa Laguna 1000 5Bi with line weighs 5.36 oz.
Weighed my 5' St. Croix Panfish Rod and it weighs 2.10 oz , 6' SC Trout Series weighs 2.56oz .
So with a factory Rod , I can get under 8oz for a 5' and a 6' foot rod . Under 9 oz with a 7 footer . Gillchaser

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Re: Your lightest Ultralight combo

Post by Lawaia » Fri Feb 06, 2015 5:05 am

Well I had to go back and look and found my Shimano MLZ 10 weighs 5.88, my Daiwa 500c weighs 5.10 which is less than my Laguna 500Bi which I forgot I even had, the box for the Laguna 500 5Bi says it weighs 5.9 oz but on my scale the actual weight is 5.15 oz and my Daiwa UL7 weighs 5.35. So I stand corrected my lightest outfit weighs 7.4 ounces. I tried posting the pics of the scale readings on my lightest reels but the file was too big.

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Re: Your lightest Ultralight combo

Post by ultralight » Fri Feb 06, 2015 9:15 am

I have a real sentimental affection for the Daiwa 500c. Very tough little reel. The odd thing is that I've had some that were 4.9 oz and others 5.05 oz. I have a bunch but don't really use them for now (favoring the Daiwa 1003 reels) though I want to build a rod around that reel using nanofil so that a tiny spool like that won't impact casting distance. Lets say one builds super light for a 6 foot rod, I can conceptually think of a rod that is .85 oz or less, making the whole package sub 5.9 oz.

As to the 1 oz 6 1/2 rod, it has to be a custom tennessee handle to go that light. So no reel seat. High modulus fly blank. I think it is something like 1.04 oz so I'm rounding down. To that light does require some extreme measures with component selection and new build techniques that, for now, is under wraps. I used to measure everything to 1/1000th of an ounce which is frankly, more for the joy of the process than necessity. It's almost a 'zen' thing where I did it for the purity of the concept where I would save every thousanth of an ounce just because I know I did it, though the person fishing with the rod would never have a clue. There is absolutely zero compromise on the ergonomics. I can say that there is a special joy in using a rig that light and sensitive.

UL

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Re: Your lightest Ultralight combo

Post by gillchaser » Fri Feb 06, 2015 9:55 am

ultralight wrote: As to the 1 oz 6 1/2 rod, it has to be a custom tennessee handle to go that light. So no reel seat. High modulus fly blank. I think it is something like 1.04 oz so I'm rounding down. To that light does require some extreme measures with component selection and new build techniques that, for now, is under wraps. I used to measure everything to 1/1000th of an ounce which is frankly, more for the joy of the process than necessity. It's almost a 'zen' thing where I did it for the purity of the concept where I would save every thousanth of an ounce just because I know I did it, though the person fishing with the rod would never have a clue. There is absolutely zero compromise on the ergonomics. I can say that there is a special joy in using a rig that light and sensitive.

UL
Bet that one is a hoot with some big bluegills :) gillchaser

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Re: Your lightest Ultralight combo

Post by ultralight » Fri Feb 06, 2015 2:44 pm

You know, never did catch blue gills. We target trout. Largest one is 10 lbs but to be fair, most are in the 1-2 lbs range. No wet noodle though - don't like noodly rods.

UL
gillchaser wrote:
ultralight wrote: As to the 1 oz 6 1/2 rod, it has to be a custom tennessee handle to go that light. So no reel seat. High modulus fly blank. I think it is something like 1.04 oz so I'm rounding down. To that light does require some extreme measures with component selection and new build techniques that, for now, is under wraps. I used to measure everything to 1/1000th of an ounce which is frankly, more for the joy of the process than necessity. It's almost a 'zen' thing where I did it for the purity of the concept where I would save every thousanth of an ounce just because I know I did it, though the person fishing with the rod would never have a clue. There is absolutely zero compromise on the ergonomics. I can say that there is a special joy in using a rig that light and sensitive.

UL
Bet that one is a hoot with some big bluegills :) gillchaser

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Re: Your lightest Ultralight combo

Post by Bryin » Mon Oct 19, 2015 8:49 pm

St. Croix 6' 2wt fly rod built with a tenn handle and micro guides... have caught smallmouth up to 3lbs and trout up to 4lb on it... it can handle 7x and 8x line... made by Barry Weaver of Dream Weaver Rods. I am having the guides replaced with TATSG guides this winter.

If you want the lightest rod, fly rod blanks are hard to beat (imho)... I love this rod.

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