[Mr Flyguy]

Originally Posted by scel

It depends where you fish and for what species.

The 5wt is a weird weight rod. It is a good trout rod, pretty good at all trout fishing, but not really exceptional. It cannot throw dries like a 4wt, nor can it throw streamers like a 6wt.

If you want to fish the Bow River, a 3wt is not a good tool. If you want to fish southern AB, it takes a very, very skilled caster to battle inevitable wind with a 4wt. On occasion, I have even broken out the 6wt to catch 8" brook trout, just to battle the wind.

Honestly, it is not ethical to use a 3wt to catch large trout on catch-n-release waters. Occasionally, it happens because, well, fishing, and that is totally awesome. If you are targetting large trout (16" or greater), a 5wt or greater is the tool to use

In Alberta, 4-6-8wt covers 100% of your fishing. In other places 3-5-7wt is the choice, but it leaves you undergunned for pike and, from my experience, underpowered to battle the wind in all the places where a 3wt would shine in ideal conditions (like the Oldman watershed or the Red Deer River watershed spring creeks).

If I were adding a second rod to my quiver, I would probably add a 6wt, to throw the streamers for those really big fish or a fast action 4wt that has enough power to punch the dry flies in a moderate wind.

Fully agree! I've been using a 10 ft 5wt (Sage VXP) in my canoe at a lake for the last few years, for suspending chiros and balanced leeches below an indicator, and it can handle the wind, the 20+ inchers and still let the 12 inchers give a good scrap. However, it's a brute when casting backswimmers, boatmen, minnows and then I go to a 5 or 6 wt 9ft.