Nick Moore | Wednesday, 23 February 2022
Distance casting with a #4 is rather difficult, and to me it just feels like I’m waving the rod around, as it’s so light! I only have a couple of #4 lines, the Ballistic Pro Performance (58’ head) and the Scientific Anglers Mastery Trout (66’ head green MED replacement with shorter running line). The running line on this is thicker than the orange MED. Both are really excellent lines, but I don’t like the colour as I can’t see takes very well on the water! Very dark olive and dark green.
I had all the rods in the car to see which one went further for me with a #5 (it was the Igniter 690-4 as I use that for fishing all the time, I need to practice with the HT10 more). Now, the conditions were not perfect, a very swirly wind that cut across from the right and left which pushed the line all over the place. I could tell, because my #5 distance should have been a lot higher with those wind speeds.
I cast the #4 ballistic on that day as well, and had a consistent set of casts over 110’. My best cast went a bit further, and this was when the wind dramatically dropped and allowed me to push back my optimal carry. The question is, if 120’ is the benchmark with the MED5 and no wind, what would the maximum distance be with the #4? How about with the perfect wind speed for the line/caster?
Tight lines all!