Gear Review: Backpacking Fly Rods

Southern Wisconsin Brown Trout

Somehow Katie wrangled me into reviewing a couple of fly rods for the Backpacker Magazine Blogs; I really cannot complain as I enjoy really fly fishing, and, as I rarely upgrade my gear, it was fun to test some new equipment.

The initial review was for four rods; I have a few more that will be reviewed in an upcoming post. All the rods were extremely packable – in fact I took two of them with me on a business trip to Wisconsin where I spent an afternoon on a small stream catching brookies and browns. Most of the rods, unsurprisingly given how many pieces they came in, were extremely fast action with one exception. I really enjoyed the March Brown Baden Powell Special Edition; it was awfully close to a true medium action rod. I am hoping March Brown come out with a 2 or 3 weight with the same medium action. The MIT engineers at March Brown have taken some aerospace technology and translated it into fly rods. Apparently their rods have been getting a lot of work in war zones; hopefully we can hear some more stories about this. Plus the have some great excuses to skip work so you can fish on their website. While I am not likely to determinately trade in any of my two piece rods, I will happily add a March Brown to my collection for the hard-to-get-to locations.

There were a number of comments about 5 weight rods being too heavy for most backpacking. While I cannot argue that for many of the high alpine lakes and streams it will be overkill, I wanted to recommend a rod that you could also use with cutthroat on the Missouri, smallmouth in the Boundary Waters, or potentially even salmon in the Cascades. If I only had one rod, it certainly would have to be a 5 weight.

Rods Reviewed:
Cabela’s Stowaway 7
L.L. Bean Travel Series
March Brown Brownsea Island
March Brown Baden Powell Special Edition * This rod rocks!

Read the full review on Backpacker.com.