The Fly Fishing Show, Marlborough Massachusetts

**AaronJasper** · 01-11-2011, 01:47 PM

I hope to see many of you guys there. I will be at the Hardy Greys booth with Jim, Crosby and John. We will have all of the new rods there for you all to test out.

All of the new Greys Streamflex rods will be there. The new rods are a totally different animal as Howard Croston really stepped it up a notch with the new gear. I'll be there to answer questions about the rods as well as nymph fishing

Housatonic River Outfitters and The Bear's Den will have copies of the DVD for sale at the show. So see Harold or Scott to pick up your copy.

Also, the new "best of the 5 weight shootout" will be there. Come check it out for yourself!

According to George Anderson:

http://www.yellowstoneangler.com/Har...ightflyrod.asp

What turned the tables was Hardy's ability to bring together a good team of rod designers and a new material from 3M here in the USA that was initially designed for the aerospace industry. Howard Croston, the leader of the design team, is a superb angler and caster, with whom I’ve fished with here in the US. He has been a member of the winning British World Fly Fishing Team, and is well known as one of the best Fly Casting Champions in Europe. The rest of his team included Alastair Dandee, John Shaner, and Jim Murphy – an American angler and great rod designer I’ve known since his days with Redington Rods. These are the kind of guys that know fly fishing and know fly rods, and this is a big part of what it takes to come up with something that is truly special.

The other component is new materials and new technology. Hardy came up with a material they have trademarked as "Sintrix" for these new Hardy rods, which have proven to be beautifully balanced, very light in weight with crisp, clean actions. In conjunction with 3M, Hardy developed Sintrix, which is carbon fiber held together with tiny silica nano spheres incorporated into the new resin system. The materials development team charged with developing Sintrix are shared with Hardy’s sister company, Hardy Advanced Composites. This Hardy team of aerospace engineers, led by Chris Bond, developed a unique matrix that was able to fully realize the potential of the new 3M resin.

With this new 3M technology an even distribution of the nano spheres through the resin can be achieved, providing an unsurpassed equality of strength throughout the blank. As a second advantage, the nano spheres resist compression better than any known material. The end result is Hardy’s ability to produce a rod that up to 30% lighter and 60% stronger than previous rods made with graphite and more typical epoxy resin systems. Bending strength is vastly improved. Hardy claims that their Sintrix rods have also proven to take a lot more abuse than normal graphite rods, both in the lab and under actual fishing conditions, a lot of which was done in Florida. Not only will these new rods bend further without damage, but they will also take incidental impacts (like flies and split shot slamming into the rod) far better than any conventional rod design - all good news to any angler!

Having a wonderful new lightweight material to work with is just part of the story. What the design team has done with it has given us one of the finest all around #5 line fly rods we’ve ever cast! By being able to use less material to build a rod with the same amount of power, they have produced a much lighter yet stronger rod. More importantly, they have given us a rod that has just the right amount of power for a 5-weight rod and that special feel in your hand that gives you confidence to put the fly exactly where you want it with a minimum amount of effort. It is one thing to build a rod that will perform well at long ranges like the TCX, but a far different thing to build a rod that will perform exceptionally well at all distances. As incredible as it may sound, this is exactly what Hardy has done with the 9 foot #5 line Zenith.

Craftsmanship is excellent as we’ve always expected with Hardy rods. The blank is a medium gray color with darker gray wraps. The wraps and coatings are top notch, as you would expect. One conventional stripping guide is used and the rest are the very light and unbreakable nickel/titanium one-foot guides, but smaller on average than on the NRX or StreamDance. The up locking reel seat is a very light and attractive anodized aluminum design with one sliding and two locking rings. A silver butt cap with the Hardy insignia is a nice touch. The handle is a comfortable western style grip much like the Z-Axis with the finest quality cork you’ll find.

**cdeight8** · 01-11-2011, 10:24 PM

Hey Aaron,

I was hoping to come up and see you this weekend in MA, however we have a pinewood derby race for the little men. I'm knee deep in graphite and enamel!

Hopefully I can make NJ. If you get chance head over to Kennedy's Pub in downtown Marlboro...great clam chowder and a good drink selection.

Chris