Gear Guide: Fly Rods Under $600

Find your perfect fly rod

by

By Perry Mack

Echo Dry

This affordable, versatile rod is designed specifically to catch trout on a dry fly, casting in the 7.5 to 15 m (25-50 ft) zone with a normal fly line. Essentially, this rod is optimized for the cast you most often use. The graphite blank gets a stainless stripper guide with low friction ceramic insert, chrome snake guides and an aluminum and woven graphite reel seat, which you can tuck into the accompanying twist-top rod sock.

Available in five 9’0”, medium-fast action models, 2-6 rod weight, weighing 2.9-3.3 oz.

MSRP: $230 - echoflyfishing.com

Sage Foundation Fly Rod

The foundation of this fast action series of rods is a high-performance Graphite IIIe blank, which provides good casting power and control. A cork handle, ceramic stripper guide, hard chrome snake guides and a tip-top finish the rod above a black anodized up-locking reel seat.

Five 9’0” rods come in a 31” tube, in rod line weights of 4-8, weighing 2 7/8-3 3/16 oz with fighting butts on 7 & 8 rod line weights.

MSRP: $325 - sageflyfish.com

Winston Kairos

This a new multipurpose series of freshwater, saltwater, and spey rods. The blanks are 100% graphite with an impact resistant clear coat. A black, anodized aluminum reel seat is followed by a chrome nanolite stripper guide, then chrome plated snake guides, which you can tuck into the grey, embroidered Cordura tube.

Twelve fast action models, 8’0”-12’3” long, in 3-10 rod weight.

Single hand rod - MSRP: $475 USD; Double hand rod (6,7 wt) - MSRP: $575 USD - Winstonrods.com

G. Loomis IMX-Pro

Let’s start by saying that this rod took the ‘Best Fly Rod’ award at the 2017 IFTD. Although we loved the top-of-the-line Asquith introduced at IFTD 2016, the sticker shock left us gasping for air. The IMX-Pro series of rods are each specifically designed for a particular purpose, but there are some common threads. By replacing graphite with a proprietary material, Conduit Core Technology is G. Loomis' way of maintaining strength in the bottom section of rod without increasing the weight. The result is a better-balanced, lighter weight rod that reduces your fatigue for improved time on the water. Fuji chrome stripping guides, single-foot snake guides, ported custom reel seats, with micro full-wells grips and hook keepers in the 4-6 weight rods, and standard full-wells grips and fighting butts (7-8 weights), plus an included Cordura rod tube round out the other features of the line.

The line-up looks like this:

  • 2 fast action, 8’10”, one-piece streamer rods in 7 & 8 rod weights - MSRP: $500
  • 8 fast action, four piece rods, from 8’6”-10’0” in length, in rod weights of 4-8 - MSRP: $500
  • 5 medium-fast, 11’11”, four piece shortspey in rod weights of 3-7 - MSRP: $575 - Gloomis.com

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