preventing any little bellies of line forming between each ring. Grant argued that as the rod completes the backstroke of the spey or overhead cast, the caster momentarily loses tension with the line as gravity tries to kicks in. With his folding rings the line was held close to the rod and as the rod was flexed forward, no valuable energy from the rod spring was wasted straightening any pockets of slack. Bearing in mind that Grant never shot slack line into his forward delivery, this meant the line was always under tension resulting in no loss of power on the forward stroke.
The real secret to success of the greenheart rod however, was the rod’s specific taper, which was worked out acoustically, rod by rod. As a talented musician, Grant also handcrafted his own fiddles and in doing so began experimenting with the principles of vibration frequencies. The information he learned was applied with great effect to his rod making room. He realised that as a natural product, the density of wood varied. This meant that two rods made to the same length, diameter and specifications different actions. Grant tuned each individual rod section as such that he could produce a rod that flexed in total unison. This meant that instead of each