Ive helped many manufacturers like G. Loomis, Sage, Winston, Loop, Douglas, and Scott with their rod design process. The handle is a western style grip, without much of a swell in the middle but a flare on the lower end to accommodate the uplocking reel seat. Performance at 60 feet: 9.5 points out of 10. This and the Pure were the only two rods I scored a perfect 20 out of 20 at 45 feet. The single uplocking seat is gray anodized aluminum, and doesnt use a spacer, but does have some trick looking cutouts on each side. In making the deflection chart, we first put up some white butcher paper on the wall. The softer tip on this rod gave me good feel and decent accuracy at close range and the amount of butt and mid-section power seems about right for a 4-weight rod. Of these rods built in Korea, the Hardy rods are designed in England, the Douglas rods are designed here in the U.S., the Loop rods are designed in Sweden. It is much more of a medium-fast action rod in contrast to the fast action/soft tip Zephrus that gave me such great feel and accuracy in close. Rods are repaired, not replaced, except for broken sections. The Hardy Shadow that tied for 4thplace sells for only $350.00. When you read everyone's comments on the Zephrus, you will see that we all agreed that this is a very special rod, for a variety of reasons. I loved the crisp, fast action of the Avantt and its light swing weight, but unfortunately the Zone is not nearly as nice. The stiffer tip didnt allow for much feel or accuracy. For me, this rod loaded up very quickly and efficiently, while still delivering a delicate and accurate presentation on every cast. The guide set up starts with a hook keeper, then one relatively small SiC stripper, followed with good sized black hard chrome snake guides that are nice thin diameter wire. The newHARDY ZEPHRUS ULTRALITEwas disappointing, mainly due to a slower action than the Zephrus, and a lack of accuracy in close. My favorite length for a 4-weight rod is 8 feet. The quality of the standard size cork rings was terrific. This was one of the rods that we felt needed the lighter Trout line. Wow It is super light in hand, and 2. The Zephrus Ultralite is ultra-light. Sage promotes the MOD as a rod that will deliver delicate presentations with pinpoint accuracy. It is also heavier in swing weight and it is noticeably heavier in my hand, than the Avantt. I dont have the feel I can place the fly just where I want it, as I can with the Zephrus. In addition it will cost you $15 or more to ship your rod in for repair or have your local dealer do it for you. We value your comments about the Shootout and invite any questions you might have about it or your tackle needs. The Avantt matches the Helios 3D in swing weight and feels nice and light in hand. But superior craftsmanship commands a much higher price! Once we determine how the rods perform at the various distances and compile these point values, we then add in points earned from all the other categories to determine the final finishing order. This is a light rod in swing weight almost as good as the Zephrus. There are not many situations when youll be fishing this far with your 4-weight, but Ive certainly had many situations, especially fishing dry flies on larger rivers, like the Missouri, where Ive had to throw it this long yet still get good accuracy and a delicate presentation in order to catch a nice fish. Perfect. You will be surprised to see how well mid-priced rods like the Hardy Shadow, the Orvis Recon, and the Douglas DXF performed, all of which made it into our top ten overall in the final results. What is a cheap rod like this doing up here with all the far higher priced rods, many of which cost $700more? Part of the light swing weight can be attributed to the use of the superb REC nickel/titanium single-foot guides. Nothing beats this rod at 40 feet. #26. Our reasoning in this Shootout was to pick what we felt were theBEST4-weight rods, regardless of length, and there no question in our minds that the 8 foot Pure is Winstons best 4-weight rod. The guides start out with a small hook keeper, then a single SiC stripper, followed with black, hard chrome single-foot guides. We like the lower price, and you cant expect the same kind of performance as the $845 Avantt which uses a more expensive, higher modulus graphite. The cork is a stack of thin rings, and the quality of the cork is excellent. The overall craftsmanship is excellent. hardy zenith. In this years 4-weight Shootout, we found that most manufacturers are building more powerful 4-weight rods than in the past. The rest of the guides are hard chrome snake guides with nice, small diameter wire snake guides on the upper two sections. We also kept on hand, and compared, what we felt was the very best rod the Hardy Zephrus. We have awarded scores emphasizing the lowest repair charges and the quickest repair turn around. They are used to throw nymph rigs, hopper/dry droppers, small streamers and some dry flies, although this is probably my least used method. The Zephrus Ultralite just doesnt live up to that level of wind-beating performance. The heavier swing weight makes casting at longer distances a workout. The action is much slower, this being more of a medium action rod. Some good alignment dots and lines are used. One thing that killed its performance scores was the very heavy swing weight. I loved the punch and power I was getting with the Shadow and only at long range did it suffer. At short range I like to cast off the tip of the rod, using mostly my wrist and little arm movement to power the tip of the rod through the stroke. If you are thinking about buying a fly rod, we suggest reading one of our Shootouts for the line size rod you want. The 4-weight Asquith was one of the stiffer rods in our Shootout and this hurt its scores at the shortest distance of 25 feet. Out long the K2 seemed to hold its own with the Recon, and it was better than either the Shadow or DXF. #24. The 79 TFO Finesse was far better. One of the things I really like is the shape of the full wells cork handle. The color of the blank is an olive green that Orvis calls shadow green. The wraps are brown and the epoxy coatings are OK but a little heavy and not nearly as well done as on the 3F. One of the things that I liked was the light feel of this rod in my hand. The wraps are done in a dark brown with some silver trim on the butt section as well as in the center of each guide foot wrap, that look nice. With the Infinity it cast better long, and I would have scored it closer to 9 at long range. Performance at 25 feet: 17.5 points out of 20. The tracking isnt as tight as something like the Sage X or Orvis Helios 3, but its pretty damned close. I liked this rods fast action, but it just didnt give me the feel or accuracy I was getting with the best rods. Details The Hardy Zephrus series of fly rods features our award winning Sintrix material - Sintrix 440.The Zephrus exhibits high recovery and enhanced in hand feel for a fast action rod, whilst generating high line speed and phenomenal line control. The quality of the standard size cork rings was very good. Another stiff rod, the Avantt, was slightly better. For most of my fishing with a 4-weight rod in critical conditions Im using one of our 12-foot leaders down to a 5X or 6X tippet, but in the Shootout we stick with 4X Rio Powerflex as a tippet in order to minimize breaking off the yarn indicator. Casting head to head, the Scott rods and the Helios 3F were both a lot better. The Hardy Zephrus series of fly rods features our award winning Sintrix . When I first picked the rod up, the overall weight was good but then when I wiggled the rod in my hand, I could see that the swing weight was heavier than almost all of the other 4-weight rods. It was a little heavier than the best rods in both overall weight and swing weight but part of this can be attributed to it being a 9 foot rod, while most other rods in our 4-weight Shootout are 6 inches to a foot shorter. Tiny single-foot guides, very light in hand with the perfect blend of power and feel. At $650 I expected it to do better. Scott uses a stack of thinner cork rings on this handle and the quality was excellent. I love the feel of this rod it is nice and light in hand, and the action is fast and seems about right. The Orvis Clearwater rods are designed in Vermont and built in the orient. If you look at the deflection chart, youll see that the Zehprus has one of the stiffest butt and midsections, yet then it progresses to a nice soft tip. The blank is graphite gray and follows Scotts practice of sanding the blank only lightly and allowing the tape marks to remain. The guide wraps are gray, trimmed with red on the butt section and first ferrule. Get this rod out in the sunlight and it really lights up. I like a lot of things about this rod. Performance at 40 feet: 18.5 points out of 20. For this Shootout, we again checked the warranty policies in detail, as some have changed slightly. We have experimented with the ways to measure this in past Shootouts but we still prefer our tried and true approach using the postal scale since it provides believable and meaningful results. But this is a fairly soft rod, and didnt have the butt power to handle the long distance quite as well as the more powerful rods. It performed better than any of the sub $300 rods, including the Orvis Clearwater. $25 handling fee. First, it is very light in swing weight and the fast action is a lot like the Zephrus in that it has a stronger butt and much softer tip than most of the other rods. The Reaper X is an improved model of this original rod. The best 4-weights must be able to cast well at longer distances too, and the best rods had excellent loop control and the ability to throw nice tight loops with good accuracy at 60 feet. This rod wore me out casting long. The wraps are dark blue to match the blank and the epoxy coatings are excellent. On the deflection board, the Zephrus had a stiffer butt and mid section and the tip bent a little more, so it is slightly faster in action than the Shadow. The locking ring was harder for me to grip than most. The single uplocking reel seat is plain anodized gray aluminum with no insert. The handle is a half wells western style grip with contrasting dark composite cork rings at both the bottom and top. Like the Zephrus, casting off the tip of the rod was easy and fun and I was getting very delicate, precise presentations. Sage Lifetime warranty to original owner. And since it was such a soft rod, the lack of butt and mid-section power killed its score at 60 feet, especially if there was any wind.