The rod I'm working on now is both unusual and interesting.  It's a 7ft6 Paul Young Perfectionist, usually for a 4wt, sometimes a 5.  This taper has been lauded in many corners, but I have to say that in general, it's one that has not tripped my trigger. Several of the clones I've cast have seemed too soft.  The best by far was a twisted Perfectionist that was crisp and clean-casting, MUCH better than the equivalent rod that wasn't twisted.  By "twisted" I mean that when the rod was glued up, it was twisted exactly one-sixth of a rotation between each guide, so that it looks like a lazy corkscrew as you sight down it.  This is a decades-old technique to give a rod more "energy", and having cast 2 rods made at the same time, one straight and one twisted, I have to say that the technique works.  Besides the troubles of glueing up the twisted rod correctly, there is also the problem of having the twist slowly "unwind" itself over time, as the formerly-straight splines try to get that way once again.  Then your guides no longer line up.  But that rod had magic built into it!

Anyway, this rod is unusual for at least 2 reasons.  First, it is an unusual Perfectionist, a taper taken off of a Perfectionist that Paul Young made for his wife, Martha Marie.  She had a heavier, 7ft6 rod named after her (the PY Martha Marie 5/6wt), but this particular Perfectionist she fished herself.  This taper matches no published taper of a PY Perfectionist; it is marked by a very unusual section of the taper, at least 15 inches long, where the taper essentially doesn't change at all.  Since the basic theory of a taper is to amplify energy from the hand down through increasingly-thin bamboo to a quickly-moving tiptop, the idea of having a relatively large section of the rod with no taper is anathema.  I have never cast this taper, and as you may know, I have sworn never to invest 40-50 hours into a taper that I have never cast, but I broke the rule for this rod.  2 well-known national rod-makers, having cast the original, have made copies of it, and its praises have been sung by those who have cast it.  So we'll see.

The unfinished MM Perfectionist above.

Second, this rod is not for me: it is part of a 3-way rod-swap between me and 2 other rod-making friends of mine, one in Arkansas, the other in Tennessee.  David is going to get this rod, and I will get some rod (I don't know what) from Rick.  This Perfectionist will not be twisted.  it's flamed a la Paul Young, and it has a custom hand-made 14/13 step-down ferrule (Paul Young regularly used Super-Z ferrules which are not step-down).  Wraps will probably be a bit more bright than Paul Young originals, which leaned towards the understated.  So there you have it.  I hope to have it done for the Colorado Rodmaker Reunion, so that I can get some feedback on the taper before I hand the rod off in October at the Southern Rodmakers Gathering.

Lee