The Other Standard in Fly Fishing

'There are standards in fly fishing' I hear you cry, well there's the AFFTA line rating one that should, but not always the case, give us an idea that a certain line should match a certain rod of the same rating.

And then there’s the other one, since the early noughties there has been another standard and an important one too, and that is, all reel feet should be the same size no matter if it's on a tiny 2# reel or a massive 12# beast. The standard, also from AFFTA covers the length, width, height, radius and camber of the reel foot.

As rod builders, something we should always check before fitting reel seats for either ourselves or for clients is if that vintage Hardy reel is going to fit this relatively modern standard. Sometimes that insert may be too long, which isn’t an issue as we can just trim to length, but sometimes, the foot is too long and just won’t fit at all! Not a problem if you know the reel foot length prior to glueing up the reel seat with your quick set 15-minute epoxy, just request a slightly longer insert.

Obviously, the easy answer is slide bands, but, they just don’t look right or quite frankly work well on rods longer than 8’ with a line rating of 4# or more.

The diagram below is what the reel foot standard looks like and the corresponding dimensions.