4 5/8 oz. 11', 4-piece, Tip-Flex 9.5 fly rod for 5-wt. line.
We set out on an adventure to make the world's lightest fly rod. Along the way, we also made the world's best.
Helios Switch 11-foot, 5-weight - The most versatile 5-weight ever. Easy
to cast one-handed, but also casts two-handed when distance is
necessary. Tremendous reach and mending ability for big water nymphing
in Western rivers and tailwaters both in and out of drift boats, and in
Midwestern tailwaters where shorebound anglers are faced with generation
periods and want greater distance. Also good for beach fishing for sea
run cutthroat and brook trout. Lightweight Helios technology finally
makes it possible to create a switch rod that is not a compromise, but
the best of both casting styles.
SALTWATER
Benefits
greatest feel of action for more accurate and longer casts
superior sensitivity and responsiveness
the strongest fly rod on the market
loads quickly, crisply, but nimbly
supremely-balanced feel
unmatched fish-fighting power
better tracking for dry flies and nymphing
smoother transition of power
reduced casting fatigue
Features
exclusive first-ever thermoplastic, thermoset resins from tip to butt
Precision Power Taper?
corrosion-resistant woven graphite & gold-anodized aluminum reel seat
flexible recoil guides
titanium frame stripping guide with NanoLite® ceramic insert
translucent-olive finish
highest grade cork handle
woven-graphite rod tube
made in Manchester, VermontBy Tom Rosenbauer
Two years ago, we set out to make the lightest
fly rod in the industry. Part of the problem was that graphite fiber
technology, at least the fiber that can be used in a premium fly rod,
just has not changed much in the past few years.
But we have a number of new rod designers in
our rod shop, young guys who look at things differently than older, more
traditional designers. They knew that all the action in composite
design is not in fiber technology but in the prepreg and scrim
technology?in other words, the stuff that holds the graphite fibers
together and the material that gives a finished rod hoop strength, or
resistance to crushing. If you can lessen the amount of graphite fiber
you need by using improved resin systems, and if you can use a lighter
scrim and less of it, you can design a fly rod with less weight.
And this is exactly what they did. Now scrim
is pretty un-sexy stuff. All it does is to keep the hollow graphite tube
used to construct a rod from collapsing under the pressure of a long
cast or a big fish. Unidirectional graphite fiber can?t do that by
itself. In ordinary graphite fly rods the scrim is made from fiberglass,
which is heavier, less expensive, and not as stiff as graphite. In Zero
Gravity fly rods, the fiberglass scrim was replaced by graphite scrim
with an epoxy binder, which allowed us to use less material and thus
make a much lighter rod.
New Technology from the Space Satellite Industry
Building upon our Zero Gravity?s exclusive
thermoplastic resin technology, which is stronger and lighter than the
epoxy resins used to make traditional fly rods, the designers found an
exciting new scrim in the space satellite industry. This unidirectional
graphite scrim with a thermoplastic binder gives us the same strength in
our rods, but uses much less material. We reduced the weight on our new
Heliosblanks by 25% less than our already lightweight Zero Gravity
blanks. Then the rod team designed, from scratch, new reel seats that
would keep the 25% weight reduction throughout the entire rod.
So, they came up with the lightest rod we?ve
ever designed. I was pretty excited. Lighter rods are more fun and less
tiring, but could this really make someone cast better or put a fly
someplace they never could before?
New Design Coupled with New Technology
Then I got a chance to cast one of these rods.
?Whoa,? I thought. ?This is an amazingly light rod and it wiggles nice,
but this thing feels really different.? And it wasn?t just the
weight. When I asked Andy Stone and Frank Hoard, the new designers, and
Jim Logan, VP and head engineer in our rod shop, I found out why. The
new material had given them the opportunity to take advantage of a new
taper, a steeper and faster taper that was not stiffer, just more
responsive and powerful.
Accuracy and Control for Freshwater Casting
So these Helios rods were fun on the casting
pond. What would they feel like in real fishing conditions? I took a
4-weight to the Delaware River for trout fishing and tried it over some
of the snottiest brown trout I?ve ever tangled with. That rod would put
the fly just where I wanted it to go, almost like ESP. I took a 9-foot,
5-weight to Idaho?s South Fork, and the most amazing aspect of the rod?s
performance was that I could switch from pounding the banks with size 8
Chernobyl Ants and then switch to tossing PMDs over finicky cutthroats
on 6X with the same rod?and it still maintained the same control and
accuracy in both cases.
Power for Casting Large Flies for Saltwater
Then I took a 10-weight striper fishing for
big June fish on Cape Cod. It handled big stripers and big poppers in
the wind like nothing I?d ever used, and after 10 hours of casting, my
arm was not the slightest bit tired. The 10-weight then came along with
me to Rhode Island in search of small bluefin tuna in August. The
bluefins were not around, but the rod helped me make some quick, precise
long casts into the wind for some nice bonito that were blowing up the
surface but only gave you a few seconds to make a presentation before
they steamed away.
Our testers have had the rods on trout all
over the world, tarpon, snook, bonefish, redfish, and many other
species. The universal reaction is that for hardcore anglers who fish on
the edge and demand the most out of their equipment, Helios sets the
standard for the next generation of graphite fly rods. Personally, I
think they?ll make plain old backyard trout fishing a lot more fun as
well.