Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Cortland PAC Rod

It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone at this point that I love Cortland rods.  With that being said, when the chance to grab a Cortland PAC rod came up, I jumped at the it.  At this point, I am not sure it was a smart move.  These rods belong in the Cortland FR 2000 family and were made between 1974 and 1980 I believe.  There has been some discussion as to who made the blank and many people believe the blank was made by U.S. Fiberglass.  The tube is marked Cortland PRF-2000 7' PAC-Rod.  The rod has 5 pieces and when assembled it is 7'.  My understanding is that there were two versions made of this blank made, one was a 5 piece and the other is a 6 piece.  The rod itself is a translucent red with brown wraps.  On the second piece of the rod it says PRF-2000 1-650-1 7' for line 6 rod weight 3 oz.  Herein lies the problem.  This rod actually handles better with a 7 weight line than it does a 6 weight line.  For me personally, that seems a bit excessive in a 7' rod. I'm really not sure how I feel about it.  In fact I'm not even sure when I will fish with it.  Most of the waters I fish require between 3 and 6 weight line.  I could see it being used for a short streamer rod on some of the smaller streams but even that might be overkill.  I mean, we are talking about streams that are less than 5 feet deep and 20 feet or less across.  Right now I am using a 5 weight line to chuck streamers and in clear water I feel like it might as well be a 12 weight.   So, I am really on the fence about keeping this guy.  I will have to take it out and throw some flies around when I have an opportunity.  Maybe I'll change my mind.  On the one hand it is a Cortland, vintage, hardly used and fiberglass but on the other hand it is a 7 footer throwing a 7 weight line.  Decisions, decisions, decisions.  Thoughts?  What would you do?








1 comment:

  1. Thanks for this post! I just found this rod in my granddad's things. I'm happy to have the description and the line weight recommendation as I'm new to the sport.

    ReplyDelete