“I am new to fly fishing and need advice on rods for freshwater fishing”. This question came in as email and I believe many anglers are at this point. In order to answer this in a meaningful way I will discuss the outfits I use in various types of fly fishing and why. I will break this down into four separate blogs and post one each week:
(A) Small Mountain Streams
(B) Large Eastern Trout Streams and Western Spring Creeks
(C) Large Western Trout Streams
(D) Bass Streams and Lakes
(C) Large Western Trout Streams
In order to help my beginner angler “find the right fly rod” let us look at the rods I use on Large Western Trout Streams such as the Madison and Yellowstone. I am very demanding on this outfit because on a heavily overcast fall day I will fish a BWO (Blue Wing Olive) Dry Fly size 20 on 6X when the trout are feeding on the natural dry olives. This requires a rod with a tip delicate enough to present this size 20 dry and light enough to set the hook without breaking the trout off. Then after the hatch is over I switch reels and spools and put on a fast sinking head to fish a Murray’s Madtom Sculpin Streamer size 6 along the river bottom. A well designed six weight 9 foot rod will do this. For years my standard rod for this was the Scott G2 906-4. I now use the Scott Radian 9 foot 6 weight 4 piece. Both of these are outstanding rods because the rod tips are light enough to protect the fine tippets while the rod butts are powerful enough to make very long casts with my streamers.
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