Only thing i can disagree with is i find the Cabela's prime 1 piece 3wt one of the most fun to fish rods i own.Got one of the biggest bass of the summer throwing foam bugs for sunfish .Nice short fat 5lber or so.Drew a small crowd at a public lake as that rod doubled over.Your not gonna get more than 40' out of it.I did not like it at first ,really slow full flexing little rod.There are 5wt vintage rods out there too.Most recent is a heddon mark 6.5 5wt.Can find no info on this rod.6.5 and 7' wonderods are 5 or 6 wts.Herters and ST Croix made some nice little rods too but if you didn't care for the Prime you might not like those.

even in cane, it's tough to beat a 7'2" Driggs River (5-wt) for this work.






You're not going to find any of these great rods in a fly shop or package store - your grandfather might have.
Newer is not always better, but our entire lives, marketing has programmed us to believe that.
(it's the only way they can sell durable goods to people who already have them)
There's not a Bill Phillipson out there any more designing glass rod tapers.
Now that you've found this resource, in addition to reading, if you really want to take advantage of it, when something on your want list is offered for sale by experienced community members, buy it.










This thread is one of our great success stories: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=65357

I just read through the thread, if you are really set on new rods, the diamondback meeker would be a bargain if half price. A nice rod but priced too high for an offshore product. I got the 804 as a Father’s Day gift and it is a nice rod. As a glass guy on a budget I mostly fish vintage rods my favorites are the Cortland FR-2000 series. Soft, slow and bend way down to the butt on smaller fish. And they will work very well underlined, a 5/6 marked rod is a good 4 and a great 5 wgt rod.

Actually isn't the 400 series Johnson Profiles the Eponite blank ones? I thought it was Scotchply for the 600 and 800 series only?

Either way, an Eponite at $80 is a good deal. I have an X76dfs (eponite), X76 (eponite), and a 7'6" LL Bean 4 piece spin fly (scotchply). I prefer the Eponites, but it might be the spinfly grip isn't quite right. I generally fish my 7'6" Phillipsons with a 5wt line and have no issues. Regarding the fight and the feel, like others have said, fiberglass is much more precise in transmitting feel.

Bob

Bob, how much difference is there between the X76DFS and X76?

I've only spent limited time trying to compare them. I've spent a lot more time on the water with the X76DFS, it was the first Phillipson I got and it took a while for the addiction to fully set in.

X76DFS has double wind snakes vs single wind on the X76. The tip sections look to be very similar but the butt sections are different. The DFS blank is larger diameter by the grip but looks to taper to the same diameter at the ferrule. The DFS butt section is stiffer. Which makes sense. As I recall the X76 felt softer than the X76DFS. I'll have to take some time to do a proper side by side one of these days.

Bob

My X76DFS seems to like a WF5 line best for me.

I've been fishing mostly my 6'6"-7' rods because I can hang them along the ceiling of my minivan fully rigged up and leave them ready for action. Maybe this year I'll force myself to take a different rod out every time. Or maybe I just need a caddy

Bob

I have casting and spinning rods that are over 7 that are one piece.I had a cabelas gift card and saw racks of Cgr and the primes on close out.I got the 3wt prime 6' and the 5'6 cgr out the door for less than 50.I regret not buying 2 more of the 3wt primes.The prime took some getting used to.It is so slow you can't believe the line stays airborne.You can cast it just using light hauls but will get out to 40 feet.They were kind of pricey when they came our.160 or so.At 20 I could not pass it up.

Another one that I didn't see mentioned that might fit would be the Berkley Parametric. I use my 7'6" 6/7 for everything from small stream trout (still bends nicely on small fish) all of the way to pond bass and small stream winter steelhead (it's got plenty of backbone should you encounter something larger). I usually fish it with a 6, but if I'm throwing big bugs, I'll throw a 7 or 8wt line on it and it'll handle those just fine.

If we wanted to take the need-my-firesuit controversy tack, could start a why buy a Fenwick thread.
Of course Fisher (including Fisher-built blanks for, Scott, Winston, SA) and Phillipson would be at the top of the list, with Para/metric close behind, St. Croix, Silaflex.
The 6'3" Para/metric is the original pocket rocket, so much like Paul H Young's shorter mid-line-weight cane rods. One of the few rods I've bought twice, but ended up selling my last one to Aurelio - a hardware + big fish rod, and anyone who fished mine giggled at its casting power, here, sight-fishing 5-lb bass in pods at 60' (ok, and big thumbs)

The reason I brought this rod to the confluence of the Frio and Sabinal, is that I'm about to take it up the narrow Sabinal, where cypress overhangs more than half of the river width, with the south Texas scrub at your back. The only possible cast to sight-fish more 5-lb bass is underhand-change-direction, and this is the rod to do it.

Great. Nice range of rods, and wow, fantastic that somebody had a 'glass 7 weight of current manufacture. It used to be you could take a "vintage" 'glass 7 or 8 weight and leave it along a stream or at a boat ramp, and odds are it would still be there a week later. Plus if anybody did steal it, you could buy another on the way home at a junk shop or garage sale for $5, less if you went late in the day when they were tossing stuff to go to the dump. So I always note when somebody has the smarts to try/use a good seven weight, not to mention manufacture a good one today. Well done.

Now I'm hoping for further reports from Slowpoke and others who were there.

I'm glad you confused slowpoke's light-line decision, but one way to turn it into resolve, don't take them casting,

take them fishing.
Kelly was baptizing his new Old Yankee Rodsmith 6' 6-wt Wulff Conolon 1-pc, and this was his first day fishing a short mid-weight rod.
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=872&p=10024#p10024

My daughters fished one just like this, and I finally sold it to a good friend at a TU chapter swap meet, for his grandson's first rod - the grandson was casting 40' on his first try in the parking lot, with grandad's tutelage.
A few years before, I took this rod along with a gang of short Phillipsons to a kid-oriented GRTU meeting for casting instruction (10-y-o Tyler Befus was the guest speaker). All the kids took to them instantly - you can't get good casting feedback on light-line rods, but mid-line-weight rods talk to you. These are rods you can fish in the dark.

The one thing you Can't evaluate in a rod on dry land is its roll-casting ability - Must take the rod to the water for that. (Can't see the thick trees and scrub behind Kelly in my photos above.) That Phillpson GMF76 would shine at roll-casting, and probably out-shine the other rods on carlz's list.
When Kelly bought his first glass rod for the Texas hill country, it was the MF76.

"Just sort of cast themselves." Fantastic. Makes perfect sense. That is the whole idea. Great to hear and well worth it to lots of us who have done as much "work" typing "relax and let the rod do the work" as we have casting our favorite 6 and 7 weights.