Eagle Claw FL300-7 Featherlight Fly Rod, 2Piece, 7', 5/6 Lbs. Yellow

I’m probably the average fisherman. I do fish quite often and fly fishing is one type of fishing that I enjoy doing. Like a lot of people I started fly fishing with a True Temper fiberglass rod which probably dates me.While I’ve fly fished for years and tie my own flies, I’ve never become a fly fishing snob and never developed the taste for expensive rods even though I’ve owned a couple. One went by way of a truck door and another by way of a dog jumping on it. And yes I do now have travel cases for my rods.There’s a few reasons why I chose this fly rod. While popular I personally don’t like the action of graphite. They just don’t feel right even though they do fish nice. Another reason is I have another one of these that I bought about eight years ago and it’s the one I grab to take fishing. It casts smooth and is forgiving and this one also doesn’t disappoint. I primarily fish for cutthroat trout and use an vintage Bronson reel with 5w line.Rod came when promised, and was packed for protection.

I had a higher end rod from Cabelas that I had been using for years. A few weeks ago, I broke the tip off while fishing Dos Rios, CA.I didn't have a backup fly rod, and was stuck using an old spinning rod for the remainder of the day. When I started shopping for a replacement, I remembered one of my first fly rods was a short little Eagle Claw feather-lite. I lost it years ago, but remembered how much I loved the action of that shorter rod. So I looked up Eagle Claw feather fly rod on Amazon, and found this one for about $25 + free Prime shipping.I fish every weekend here in Northern California and needed a fly rod a.s.a.p.. Since it was such a low price, I immediately bought one, thinking it would make a good cheap and quick replacement until I got another high end rod.It has exceeded my expectations and fishes just like I remember. It is also much nicer than the utilitarian design of the old ones. This one has a very nice reel seat with a faux wood insert that looks great. It has the durability that you'd expect from Eagle Claw, and for $25, I never worry about breaking it. I bought the 7' version and use a 6W line. It loads great, casts smoothly and the faster action makes it easy to place flies exactly where I want on the small rivers and brooks around here.I would absolutely recommend this fly rod to any angler looking for an inexpensive rod that performs well.

This is one of the rare times when you get more than what you pay for. For the price, this rod is amazing. I wouldn’t compare the performance to my extremely expensive rods, but this is a great rod. These definitely catch fish. I bought the 3wt and the 5/6wt. They are my favorite rods now... The slow action and the forgiving nature of fiberglass is just great to cast and makes it easy to fish. Since it’s fiberglass it has the floppy action which requires you to slow down the cast. It’s a short rod so no need to break it down. I’m amazed this rod isn’t above $100. Everyone that fly fishes needs at least one Featherlight model. It’s durable and built very well.

It won't perform like a $1000 Orvis rod. Unless you're superhuman you won't be able cast a fly 25 yards away and drop it in a teacup. The fittings are cheap, the reel seat unscrews at random intervals; the top section falls out of the bottom section if you don't apply wax -- so apply wax because the rod join *will* break if cast with the top section half-inserted.But it's an honest-to-goodness fly rod that will catch anything a $1000 rod will, as long as it's withing 30 feet or so of where you're standing. The action is quite slow; this has advantages and disadvantages. For the beginner it means timing -- which is even more critical for fly casting than it is for other kinds of rods -- is a little bit less critical, although you can get into the bad habit of trying to overpower the rod. The trick with any rod is to learn to let the rod do the work. If you try to muscle the fly out to where you want it you'll get what fly fishermen call a "wind knot" -- which has nothing to do with wind and everything to do with brute force casting.I find it easy to do nice roll casts with this thing, which is really handy. The standard cast requires as much room in back as you are going to cast the fly forward, so you often find yourself unable to cast exactly where you want. That's in part why fly fishermen usually don't just cast from the bank, they get right down into the water. If you can get the fly roughly where you want it, you can put it on the spot with a roll cast.This thing casts dry flies and most wet flies well enough, but can have a little problem with heavier or weighted streamers like a woolly bugger; it won't handle sinking leaders gracefully either. That's fine for fishing streams and shallow ponds, but it means when fish go deep you won't be able to follow.As for durability, at $23 bucks, who cares? But I'll say this: most fly fishing rods are fragile. A high-modulus graphite rod that can easily land a 30 pound salmon can snap like a dry twig if it snags on a branch while you're forcing your way through underbrush to get to the water. This thing, except for the joint where the two halves come together, is pretty much bullet proof. This makes it a good choice for kayak fishing, where getting in and out can be hazardous to your rod.Fly fishing is promoted as a rich man's hobby, but in fact it can be as cheap, or cheaper than spin fishing. You start out with a cheap rod like this one. You hardly use the reel at all in most fly fishing so you can start with the cheapest reel you can find. Splurge instead on a good weight forward fly line, because that'll make everything much easier. Also waders are a good investment too, and once you've got used to it you'll find you'll use them for spin cast fishing as well; they turn inaccessibly brushy shoreline into fishing territory.