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I have found several tapers for the PHY Midge rod and all of them seem to be quite different from each other, I am thinking of a 2 piece either 4 wt or 5 wt.  Any suggestions about what your favorite is?  (Don Green)

My favorite is the one in Jerry Foster's Rodmakers site,  it's a 4 wt. I make both it and the Perfectionist with a swelled but 'cause I can't stand having the grip bend under my hand.   (John Channer)

I like the Young Midge taper from The Lovely Reed.  It's a nice crisp 4 wt.  (Paul Julius)

Is the Para 13 the lightest line weight of the Para series.  (Gary Nicholson)

Wasn't the 14 the lightest and the 13 was named and made by a modern maker by modifying one if the other para models?  (Jim Lowe)

PHY was constantly playing and experimenting - one never knows what might turn up. Wayne Cattanach has an interesting tale or two. Wayne has stated that he has seen one (and only one) PHY Para 13. To the best of my knowledge, the Para 13 taper that is floating around was first posted by Brian Creek from dimensions given to him by Wayne, presumably taken from that rod.  (Larry Blan)

Isn't  the perfectionist a Para rod with a #13 ferrule? (the ferrule size depending on whichever perfectionist taper you accept as accurate).  A Para 13 with a cooler moniker...and fine rods as to be sure!  (Rob Hoffhines)

Can anyone tell me what length this was and pass on the taper please.  If anyone has it.  (Gary Nicholson)

(Timothy Troester)

Thanks for that.  I'm confused, is the rod only 7ft ?  (Gary Nicholson)

That is the way it looks to me. some of the tapers I found listed around various places I think need to be interpreted or translated or guess about but I think this one is straight forward 7'.  do you do your work across the pond in inches or centimeters? just curious.  (Timothy Troester)

Since my name is attached to this I had better let everyone know the history. :)

This particular Para 13 taper was posted on Clark's in early 2006 along with a pair of alternate Para 14 tapers, all of which were supposedly mic'd from rods.  The original post seems to no longer be there so I'm going from memory here.  No mention was made of subtracting for varnish, but looking at the other P14 tapers given, it looks like that has already been done.  However, a few people have mentioned that this rod looks heavy as some seem to think the P13 was a 3/4 wt whereas this is more of a 5 wt.  Others say the P13 was a specialty rod and not just a line weight lighter than a P14.  I have no idea, so please treat the numbers with the suspect they deserve.

It was specifically stated to be a 7' rod.  Below is the original post with the other P14 tapers included.

(Chris Carlin)

Here's an Excel file (Young Paras) to a list of Young tapers from the RodDNA database if that helps.  Unfortunately, the "para 13" isn't included.  I've stratified the list into parabolic and other designs.  That's beyond the scope of the question since you specifically asked about the "para" series.  But I thought it might be interesting to see all the parabolic Young's sorted by line weight.  I've defined parabolic designs as tapers with average diagonal values greater than five percent.

This is a FlexRod download.  For folks that are not familiar with FlexRod, read the intro on my blog first.  Return to this e-mail when you're ready to download the file.  There is no link to the Paul Young file on the blog.  This is a temporary file.  I'll delete it in a few days.

Here's the link to the Paul Young file.  (David Bolin)

Just reviewing the tapers on Hexrod, looking at the two tapers for the PHY Perfectionist.  One is from Chris Obuchowski, the other from Wayne Cattanach.  These are radically different tapers!  Wayne's measures 12.99/64 at mid and takes, of course, a size 13.  Chris' version measures 3.95/64 at mid and takes a 14!  While the stress curves are similar, they certainly are not the same.  Did Paul Young vary that much on a given design or am I missing something here?  (Bob Brockett)

You are not missing anything.  Both are great rods, IMHO.  One is a 4 wt.,  the other a 5 wt. (or a very fast 4 wt).  Made 'em both, like 'em both.  The 14 ferrule rod is really an all-around type rod, while the 13 ferrule is more of a dry fly rod, at least for me.  (Paul Julius)

Y'know what, guys, I'm going to have to take up a collection for Lenscrafters.  Reading over these again, on Chris O's taper, it reads as a 7642 at the top, but in the description beneath he does list it as a 5 wt. Still, if you compare the tip sections and butts with Wayne's, they're still a bit strange for the same taper.  Thanks for your insight here, guys.  And Paul has made them both!   And they work fine.  There you go!  (Bob Brockett)

On the old Rodmakers Website it lists the PHY Para 15 as a 5 wt. yet I have some of the best rodmakers telling me it is a 6 or 7 Wt. Does anyone really know what weight the Para 15 weight is.??? (Lew Boyko)

Technically 6wt

Size 13 ferrule = 4wt
Size 14 = 5wt
Size 15= 6wt

But. Depending on how you skin that potatoe it could be a tad different.

My first para14 liked a 6 dt wt line for the first few months but now I like it with a long belly 5. (Tony Bellaver)

What distance are you casting?

I have used, on advice, anything from a 4 wt to an 8 wt weight forward line on a 4 wt rod.  For short distances, the heavier lines felt perfect for me.  For longer casts, I wanted/needed a lighter line weight.

I will admit I prefer a slower casting cadence.  That may also influence my preferences.

For what it is worth... (Greg Dawson)

Longer than normal casting I guess. It's something I've noticed with the Driggs River too. I don't use a Para 15 taper much these days but I do use a Driggs Taper a lot and in both cases I've found that the nature of the rod alters as the amount of line you're casting increases. It's not just a timing thing, I unconsciously alter my grip on the handle too.

Mike Roberts who some may remember as being on the list a few years back could cast an entire Hardy WF6 line plus 20 foot of backing with only a few false casts with my Para 15 taper rod, something I can't do. This Hardy WF6 to me felt exactly like a Hardy DT5 BTW. I can't remember the mathematics behind the first 30 feet of the two, I just remember they felt the same to cast on that rod.

I used to use that Para 15 on a particular river in Western Australia that was quite wide, like 100 feet wide and too deep to wade in a lot of places so I had no choice but to make casts as long as I could manage and the WF6 was good for that. A DT6 was too heavy.
The river flow was moderate and rainbow to a few pounds, mostly 1-2lb and this was a good rod for there.

When I first moved to Tasmania I used a DT6 all the time with it because the distances were more normal there though for lakes on calm days I may have tried a lighter line. I wound up going to Dickerson tapers in Tassie more in the end though. I don't think Tasmania is good for parabolic tapers overall due to the wind more than anything else.

The same applies to a large extent to NZ though there I think you want butt sections on rods that resemble telephone poles and fine tips. The Dickerson tapers I ended up liking best were the Guide Special, the 7614 and 7612 and these always felt just right with the same line no matter what the distance or conditions as far as line weighs go.

Here where I now live in Victoria where I tend to fish very small streams with very small fish and very large populations of hideously ravenous leaches I like the Driggs with a DT5 but I used the same rod in Tassie with a DT4 and in fact it's pretty much the only rod I use these days.

It does seem to matter where you use the Paras more than most other tapers as far as I can tell.  (Tony Young)

There are versions of both weights listed on Hexrod and Rod DNA. (JW Healy)

Depends on what use you give it. As a nymphing rod on streams it seems to work best as a #6. As a river rod with longer casting it's a nice #5. I like it as a #6. (Tony Young)

Fishing hex patterns on Michigan streams (the Manistee & Au Sable) the PHY Para 15 with either tip is a 6 weight. (Wayne Cattanach)

I use the Para taper as my lake fishing rod. I have 4 of them and generally rig two of them each day. They spent upwards of 90 days on the water last year.  One carries a Cortland 444 DT6F and the other a new Sci Anglers new Sharkwave Ultimate Trout WF6F that I use for long leader chironomid fishing where the casts are typically 60'+ utilizing leaders >18'. One of the lines used is a very slow sinker which is a 7 weight forward. The rod casts all of the lines well. (Don Anderson)

Per Paul H. Young's Para 15 rod, what does the 15 stand for. Just curious. (Lew Boyko (9/13/2016))

Ferrule size. (Bret Reiter)

I have no direct knowledge of this, but ... according to Joe Mitchell (a Paul Young buddy), Paul could sometimes do a little "freestylin'" with names and numbers.  For example, the Para 14 also uses a 15/64th ferrule.  I suppose it is entirely possible that he made the 15 & named it for the ferrule size, and then made a smaller "parabolic" which he called the 14 because it was smaller.  I have also heard (funny how many things you can hear - I wonder how many of them are true) that Paul Young wouldn't know a parabola from an integral; he just thought it sounded neat and "mathy." (Grayson Davis)

15/64 ferrule I believe. (Bubba Allen)