Not to hi-jack the thread, but would any of you more experience rod gurus recommend throwing a 3 wt line on the 2 wt?
Absolutely. Even a 4, 5, or a 6 wt. Depending on the distance you wish to cast.
A rod is designed to load with a certain weight of fly line beyond the tip. Now, that weight is both a function of the line weight (weight/distance), as well as how much line you have out to begin with.
A cannot verify the accuracy of this, but I've always heard that rods are rated for 30 ft of fly line beyond the tip (not including leader). And fly lines are rated for the 1st 30 feet of the taper.
Based on standard weight charts, the following are all equal:
30 feet of 2 wt line
24 ft of 3 wt line
20 ft of 4 wt line
17 ft of 5 wt line
15 ft of 6 wt line
Now, remembering that this is distance of fly line not including leader, picture yourself fishing your typical small streams. If you're like me, then 10-20 ft is the norm. Fairly severely overlining the rod is in actuality, properly lining it for your distance. Loading the rod is much, much easier.
This is all, of course, assuming that the weight ratings on your rod and line are proper, which isn't always the case. Lots of rod manufacturers underrate their rods for marketing purposes. Picture yourself setting out to buy a 5 wt. You grab 4 candidate rods and a reel loaded with 5 wt line and go outside to test cast side by side. First thing most do is strip out 60 feet of line and start hero casting. Well, guess what, there's one rod in the mix that's actually a 7 wt with a 5 wt sticker on it. And it feels FANTASTIC, much better than the other rods. Sold, and you go home with a 7 wt rod and saying, "boy, modern rods cast so much better than older rods". Till you get streamside and have to make a 10 ft cast with an underlined rod, anyway....
When evaluating any rod, or line weight on a rod, do your testing at the distance you expect to fish it, don't worry about what it does at unreasonable fishing distances.