I'm a fan of my gen ii 5wt. I just couldn't enjoy the 8 six 7 though. Felt like a club to me. Heavy. The tip was sloppy. Just didn't enjoy it. Tried all kinds of lines on it too. I also own the cgr 7/8. And still own it. Fun rod.

I have considered looking for a fenwick as well. Blue halo was having a sale on their blanks so it got me to thinking. It would be about the same money since I have quite a few rod building parts laying around.

Sounds like the 7wt Blue halo and the cgr are fairly close by comparison.

Thanks all.

I have a 6wt fenglass and love it, mostly for warmwater fishing. I also picked up a 7wt this spring, but haven't used it as much. Hmm, stripers ...

Not quite the same but I have a BH 5wt you can fling around if you want to get a feel for it.

Got the Fenwick 858 yesterday. Lined it up and casted it next to my CGR and So far I wasn't blown away with to much difference using similar fly lines. It did seem to have a bit more backbone and maybe pick up a longer distance of fly line of the lawn. This weekend I will line them both up with same flies and do a water test.

Has anyone removed the plastic cap in the reelseat on these femwicks and tried to add a removable fighting butt?

When I had mine, all I did was trim up a champagne cork and epoxies it into the reel seat once I removed the cap. Worked great (this was an old beater rod so I wasn't terribly concerned with aesthetics... but still looked fine and functioned as intended)

I went ahead and ordered the new ECHO BAG Quickshot 8' 9wt. Hopefully its fits the niche I'm looking for.

Um...you know Blue Halo blanks are rolled in China, right?

Nope. I'm pretty ignorant about the things. I will say one thing: the blue ones are pretty. Whether they catch fish or not, they are a pleasure to gaze upon!

I fish the CGR 7-8 and find it works best with a 7; a very nice rod for the money.

Here's my question. Has anyone gotten their hands on one of those newer Bad Ass Glass 6's or 7's from Echo? I'd like to hear how they perform.

The echo quickshot should hopefully get here today. I am routinely making 60-80 foot casts at some very spooky flats species and on the beaches here in Florida. Unfortunately the cgr is not the tool for this. I do love it for other fishing just not in this scenario. I’m hoping the faster echo bag is going to be my ticket aside for always using my graphite sticks.

Well I got the 9wt BAG quickshot today, and all I can say so far is I am very impressed. First I lined it up with a 9wt SA aircel clear int tip line. It had no problem tossing this line to the backing knot with a smaller bead chain shrimp pattern.
I then swapped to the cortland flats taper 9wt liquid crystal flyline with very similar results with the same fly.

I have never casted a glass rod like this. If you slow your stroke down the rod casts similarly to a lot of glass rods and easily hits short shots. Though I feel the defining factor for this rod is what it can do when you speed up your stroke and push the rod. Most glass rods seem to fall flat on their face when you try to speed up your stroke and tighten your loops. The echo just smiles and grins and shoots line nobody's business. I could apply a stroke almost as fast as my graphite rods with a very tight loop or I could slow it down and get a more traditional glass feel.

I have a feeling this rod is going to take a lot of market share from EPIC and other high end faster glass rods business.

I will hopefully get the rod out this weekend to test it on some redish or bonito to get the full review.