Hey Gavin and Dana...
Dana, you nailed it right on the head with the 13x13.....And yes you did cast the "Claymore" at Aarons.
It is a niche rod, and it is designed to quickly defeat the bright King....Or for presenting into serious beach enviornments.
A few seasons ago I was asked by the folks at Nakia lodge on the Lower Dean to design a rod or two for presenting shooting heads to their Bright Springers.
They primarily wanted a few rods that would minimize the possibility of exhausting the very Bright King early in its journey.
....Very feisty fish at that stage, but still prone to be easily exhausted if fought with too light of tackle.
Thus the 13x13 ~ 4 pc and the 13x10/11 ~ 3 pc.
The 13X13 is a shooting head rod.
It will deliver two hands on the overhead no worries, and once you've got your timing down will Skagit family cast quite well....Perry poke tips etc.
It will be tip loading at around 550 grains or so and will require 1200 grains to get deep into the butt reserve.
It is admittedly not the greatest long belly classic delivery distance rod.
At only 13 ft in length.....Requireing 1000 grains + to butt load....It will not easily carry more then 80/90 feet of aerialized long belly line.
At least I sure have a hard time doing it !!!
But it will RIP a shooting head more then a fair distance with ease.
.....And that is what the rod was originally asked to do: Deliver extreme tip systems into fluctuating water levels to holding fish, at short to mid distances. Then quickly defeat the fish.
I do like the SA short belly Spey (50 ft) 12/13 for this rod. These are great lines to mess around with....Add compensators, and built T14 tips etc.
....And the Rio for 11/12/13 has lots of cool options.
The base line is 900 grains or so....And the overall belly length is still short enough to be manageable.
With a modified mid section and Big Boy Dredgers (or built up tips) it can set up as a very versitile interchangeable tip shooting head line.
I've not tried the new Rio Scan lines.....But they seem to be the reincarnation or adabtation of the same shooting heads that they offered several years ago ? So the 800 grain + heads should work just fine as base lines.
I also like the Guideline 50 foot shooting heads on this rod.....Hard to get them here now.
At any rate Dana....A very accurate comparison when comparing the 13X13 to the single handed Blue water fly rod....Good on ya.
Although, if the 13X13 is built as a "Transformer" it also becomes an awesome 10'6" ~ 12/13 weight 3 pc. two handed blue water "switch rod".
Throwing two handed roll casts to teased bills is kinda fun.
Meiz