[quote="bulldog1935"]

I've also never met a cane rod over 8-1/2' that I liked, though that length in 4/5-wt cane completely fills my trout fishing niche. tailwater and western.

Try an E. C. Powell 9.5’ 6-7wt. You won’t believe how light in the hand and perfectly balanced the rod is.

I'm a fan of glass and grass, but over 8'6" I tend to go for graphite in single-handed rods.

I find 7'9" to 8'3" to be a sweet spot in rod length design where bamboo, glass, and graphite are all useful for creating superior products.

My vintage rod experience has shown me that glass from those earlier times turns a corner for me at about 8 ft. I have a couple of glass rods longer than that (8'6" Shakespeare and 8'3" Fenwick) but I have not kept any others for the trout and stream fishing that represents most of my fishing. I particularly like the 7 1/2 to 8 ft, 5 and 6 weight rods from those days. I know there are others who have 8'6" vintage glass rods that they swear by for their fishing, but they are generally not for me.

I think we haven't pushed the limits of what glass can do, but it is clear to me that as you get longer, graphite is a better fit.

In vintage rods, 8' is the limit for med-fast action rods and 8'6" for medium to slow rods.
In modern rods, those numbers get a bit longer (McFarland s-glass to just over 9' in a single hand rod), and I think they could go longer, but going to graphite makes the job easier, and you can produce a 9' med-slow action rod in graphite. The McFarland 'Vintage' and 'Emerger' are good examples, as are the early vintage Graphite HMG and Orvis Graphite rods.

In two handed rods, I'm still trying to get the feel for what glass can do. I feel they are decent Skagit rods but are not well suited to Scandi, but maybe I just need to work on my casting.

I think the longer glass rods that are out there today (8.8"-9'3") are the limit.

I purchased the Echo glass switch/spey rods when they were on closeout from a Portland retailer for $139 a few years ago. I ended up with the 10’6 4wt, 11ft 6wt, and 12’7” 7wt. I use the 4wt with a vintage automatic reel and Teeny T200 for big water deep streamer fishing casting one-handed and it is wonderful but i dont fish it skagit or skandi style. I fish the 6 wt with a mix of double and single handed and feel it is perfect for large trout rivers fishing deep where i have to fish double handed because of the brush/trees. The 12’7” 7wt is killer but i havent fished it much, just cast it off a dock a bunch of times. I use a 540gr floating spey line on it (Gaelforce) and it is pure fun to play with and very easy to make an inexperienced spey caster feel proud. I have a Burkheimer 7134 and can cast better with the Echo. If i was a better spey caster i might think differently. I definitely dont feel i am sacrificing anything over graphite with the 6 and 7 wt echo rods.

I think that at 11 ft with the taper Echo went with on the 6wt i feel it is the ultimate big water fiberglass trout rod.

My preference for fishing vintage now trump my desire to fish with these more “effective” tools and nostagia is what im looking for over quantity. I need to pull these back out of the closet and play with them more.

In this thread, let's stick to length of single handed rods, "light" line of the conventional AFFTA standard. 'Glass spey rods might make a fun separate topic but both "long" and "light-line" are of a different order in discussing them.

Are the ********* YS rods not hybrid glass/ carbon? Sorry if I have got that totally wrong.

Thanks Dusty, cool.