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| Name: Arnold Markowitz |
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| E-mail: witzfish@earthlink.net |
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Experience:
I've been fishing since early childhood,fly fishing since 1976 in fresh waters and salt. Latest bragging catch: a 28-inch keeper snook on fly tackle. |
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Product Being Tested:
Pflueger Purist 8-foot 5-wt flyrod (model PP 8056, list price $39.95))and Pflueger Medalist Pro 1756 reel (list $44.95). |
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Snapshot of your experience with products of this sort:
I've always owned and liked Medalist reels and like them more since exposed rims were introduced.They're simple, reliable,durable,inexpensive.
For 2 years I've owned a Pflueger Trion 8-wt rod and Trion reel.I still fish my oldest flryod, a fiberglass Fenwick with a Medalist, both bought in 1976. |
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Date of Test:
Nov. 10-11-12, 2006 |
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Place of Test:
Biscayne Canal in Miami's northern suburbs, fishing for bass. |
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Test Condition:
Warm, sunny weather with wind ranging from near calm to 10-15 knots. |
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Relevant related equipment or products:
I used a Wulff triangle taper 5-wt line with the test reel and an intermediate-sink line (brand forgotten) on another Medalist.
I switched the same lines and reels back and forth with a Winston Ibis 5-wt, 7-1/2 foot rod. Both rods are made of IM6 graphite. The Winston has a faster action. I don't consider this an apple-to-orange comparison. More like 2 kinds of apple. |
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Your experience with the product:
Before fishing, I compared the Pflueger Purist and Winston Ibis from the bank of a canal near Angling Report's offices. In less than an hour, wind went from near-calm to about 20 knots. Casting overhand and sidearm, both rods put out accurate 40-foot casts as measured from the rod tip. As the windspeed increased, casts were knocked off line but acceptable tosses were still possible at 25-30 feet.
Later, casting from a canoe with small to medium bass bugs, distance differences between Winston and Pflueger rods were negligible, but bear in mind the Pflueger's half-a-foot advantage in length. The major difference was in casting an absorbent, soggy rabbit-strip fly. The soft-action Pflueger lobbed it clumsily. Winston cast it crisply and accurately.
Winston also was a little better against a headwind. I'm able to throw a tighter loop with it, although that has not resulted in greater distance. I regard both rods as short-range casters anyway.
I caught two small bass with the Pflueger,and found the relatively soft butt section no handicap.
On my third day of comparing Pflueger and Winston, I cast from a canal bank for two hours. That was when I did the reel and line-switching. My longest cast was 43 feet from the tip of the Pflueger with a Wulff Triangle Taper line and a tiny cork panfish bug. The Winston tossed that one 40 feet, also measured from the rod tip.
I rate myself, perhaps too generously, as a middling-to-average fly caster. Someone who's above average should get more distance and accuracy from either rod, but I don't think there's a whole lot more in the Pflueger.
Neither of my bass required me to test the Medalist Pro reel's center-placed disc drag, which is unlike the tiny rim-mounted button drag on the older Medalists.
This one's a copy of the Trion drag, with a large finger-friendly knob on the side. I've caught fish that tested my Trion reel, and it beat them, so I start out with faith in this one.
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Qualities you liked about the product:
I like the simplicity of the up-locking graphite reel seat with its hood and tightener in one piece, and the stainless steel guides. Pflueger doesn't describe the Purist as corrosion-proof, but I think I could get away with fishing it in Miami's brackish tidal waters if I wanted. It's a nicely-balanced rod that makes casting nearly effortless.
The reel, smallest of three in the Medalist Pro line, is rated for 5 or 6-weight line. It has a medium-wide arbor and a lot more backing capacity than I'll ever need.
I tested the drag by pulling line out by hand and I judged it firm and smooth. It looks like a big improvement over the old Medalist style, a tiny button mounted on the rim of the reel. |
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Qualities you didn't liked about the product:
I'm afraid there's a fitting problem. I put my rods together pretty carefully in order to avoid pop-aparts while casting, but this rod popped apart once the first day I fished it (Friday), three times on Saturday and once more on Sunday. If you snag your fly on a cast like that, and you're using a fine tippet, you're liable to lose your tip section along with your fly. I think you'd really hate that. |
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Summary Comments
This thing is pretty good for a $40 flyrod. If you didn't notice "Made in China" on the butt, I don't think you'd guess the price that low. I am not surprised, because my 8-wt Pflueger Trion rod and reel (that rod is IM-8 graphite) proved to be such a great value.
The Medalist Pro reel is made in Korea of die-cast aluminum. It has left-right retrieve interchangeability. All my prior Medalist experience is with the older models, wherever they were made. I've bought big, medium and little ones, all for considerably less than $50. They've never let me down. I expect a lot from this one.
Was it foolish to match the Pflueger Purist against a Winston that cost about 5 times the Pflueger's price? I don't think so. Both are 5-weight rods, both made of IM-graphite. Neither is meant for long-range casting.
I'm pretty fond of my Winston. I also think a lot of anyone who can build a 5-weight comparing that favorably to it and selling for 20 percent of its price.
Cast for cast, the Pflueger did itself proud except when tossing a fly that held a lot of water. Small unweighted (or very lightly weighted) streamers made of synthetic non-absorbent materials will work fine with this rod. Deer hair bass bugs cast well too, partly because of deer hair's buoyancy and partly because dry fly floatant was liberally applied.
This is not going to replace the Winston as my primary 5-weight rod. That's because I can cast the shorter Winston one-handed with a little more ease and maybe a little more accuracy while paddling a canoe on southeast Florida's often-narrow upland canals, which often are overhung by trees.
If I'm in a boat on a lake, I'll probably go with the Pflueger outfit-- assuming I can find a way to stop the sections from popping apart.
There's also something different, or at least I think there is, about handling the best rods-- something subjective and subtle beyond the objective standards like cast-for-cast measurement.
Comparisons like the one I chose, $40 Pflueger vs $200 Winston, can make you wonder if the manufacturers of high-priced fly tackle are dazzling us with hyperbole for their tight-loop, wind-piercing wonders and their miracle reels machined from bars of aircraft-rated aluminum.
Maybe they are, a little. Maybe we'd all gag if we knew the manufacturer's profit margin behind the rigidly-enforced list prices for what we regard as the best stuff. Maybe, but I'm not ready to offer this review to the affirmative side in that debate.
I think what Pflueger's been doing with flyrods does support a more measured position that
pretty damned good tackle can be built at prices that don't freeze out the angler on a tight budget, and that well-developed fishing skills can just about obliterate differences between the great rods and the pretty-to-very good. |
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