I want to get into fly fishing, but i can't afford to spend a lot on a rod and reel. Any advice helps!
I was looking into those, but I don't want to buy some piece of crap; some other rods/reels i see listed are climbing into the $200+ range which i really can't afford, and it leads me to believe there's a REASON why these are so much cheaper
Posted by south43paw
12 Comments
To be honest you’re better off looking on Facebook Marketplace. My first fly rod my grandfather got on marketplace for $200 CAD. Was an Echo Ion XL with Okuma SLV and I still use that combo
I’d lean towards finding something on facebook marketplace. Maybe if you could up your budget by $50 you could find a reddington setup on there.
Check out Bass Pro shop/Cabela’s. Their white river line is pretty good.
In my opinion, line quality matters more than rod or reel quality. I would get one of those cheap options, get a $60 line to start and you will be able to cast and catch fish.
I bought a whole rod+reel combo setup that included line, leader, tippet, & 6 flies at the grocery store in Ely, NV (in 2017)
I bought Daiwa Algonquin + Lochmor based solely on the fact that I love their ultralight spinning setups. I’ve only gotten it out once but it was $65 for the rod and $35 for the reel
I don’t have an educated opinion but it worked plenty well for me. I spent equal amount on the line and also thought that was funny.
I DMed you, ill give you my personal adivce from my year of learning and spending on combos and seperate components.
Maybe unpopular opinion, but I’ve had my white river 5wt from Bass Pro for about 1.5 years and it’s done great. It’s by no means a “nice” rod/reel/line, but it was no more than $80 and it’s caught many fish, from city creeks here in Georgia to technical streams in Colorado.
I have a aventik fiberglass rod that I really like. Im not sure I’d use their reel or line though…
Take that $70 and look for a used orvis Clearwater combo on eBay or marketplace. The cheapo kits will certainly catch fish, but if you like fly fishing you will want to upgrade asap, and if you put any significant amount of time in using it, likely some component of it will break/fail.
Source: guy who got a white river setup for Christmas one year, had the butt section break, and now own several much nicer rods and reels.
I used an Aventik 8wt. rod for my trip to Belize and it was wonderful! Caught a ton of fish up to 12 lbs and it held up awesome.
Throwing in a recommendation for MaxCatch rods. You can get one for $60 and get a Piscifun Sword reel for $60, with line. All in, $120 for an outfit and it will be just fine. I’ve recently used a more expensive TFO rod that I did not like any more than my MaxCatch Ultra Lite 4wt. Most rods under $500 are Chinese made these days anyways.