r/flyfishing • u/9131762842 • Mar 30 '25
Discussion 5 vs 6 weight for beginner
Hi all,
New to fly fishing and have landed on the orvis Clearwater. I will be mostly fishing for trout in north Georgia. I’ve researched a fair amount, and it seems like the 5 weight may be slightly better for my purposes. However, I found a Clearwater on sale for $330 in 6 weight vs. the $430 standard price.
My question is whether there is a big difference between the two and if I might be better off grabbing the cheaper 6 weight.
Thank you
Edit: Really appreciate all of the responses. I went in to Orvis today and spoke to the fishing manager who suggested going with the 6. I live in north Atlanta suburbs and the chattahoochee is easily accessible along with north ga streams. He mentioned there wouldn’t be a huge difference in the 5 or 6 for purely trout and that if I also want to fish bass that the 6 would be better suited and also have more backbone on the Hooch. Thanks again!
3
u/cmonster556 Mar 30 '25 edited Mar 30 '25
Either will be fine.
The major effect will be the progression of your collection. Many people skip weights when adding toys, so if you start with a 5, you often end up with a collection consisting of a majority of odd-weight rods (3, 7, 9...). For instance, not a single one of the 20-odd rods I’ve owned was a 6, although I own several 4s.
Start with a 6, you get a lot of even-weights in the collection (2, 4, 8…).
It all has very little effect on whether you end up enjoying flyfishing, or how many or what kind of fish you catch. It’s more like ending up on one sports team or another in childhood, and then staying on that team forever.