If you want to do everything with a five-weight rod, it needs to have enough flex in the tip and enough stiffness in the butt. Not too much or too little. When designing a rod, we rate stiffness by what fictional line size “most” anglers would use on the rod. We call this the rods line stiffness rating (LSR).
For example, a standard five weight rod would have a LSR rating of 5.0. A soft five weight rod might balance well with a 4.7 weight line. A stiff five weight rod might need a 5.5 weight line to load it and cast well. That extra stiff / distance casting five weight rod you use to show off to your friends might need a 5.9 weight line to balance with it. The new TROUT X rod has a LSR of 5.4 which can put a trout fly anywhere you want over the largest range of fishing conditions.
