Hi Gabe, Welcome to the Forum!

When you say a 10 foot spey rod and 4-ish weight, do you mean a 4-ish weight spey fly line? or a conventional fly line? Approximately how heavy a line do you wish to cast? The AFFTA spey line standards only go down to 6 weight spey lines.


Tom

Very few glass rods are described in 'spey' terms. A 'single hand' four weight glass rod would be designed to work with a 120 grain fly line. See the AFFTA fly line standard page for weight ranges. A glass fly rod designed to work with a 200 grain line would be more of a 'single hand' 7 or 8 weight. The vast majority of glass rods are 9 feet long or less.

If you can live with a 9 foot blank, you will have many blanks you can build into a two-handed rod. For that matter, you could start with a 9 foot blank and extend the handle by installing a stent at the butt end.

As far as >9 foot, purpose built, glass spey blanks - slim pickings. I think you identified the companies that sell a lighter glass spey blank. This is one area where graphite is king.


Tom

I don't have any two handed rods, so I'm clearly no expert. The AFFTA link in my last post shows the line weights for both one-handed and spey lines. The spey line standards run from 6 to 12 (as usual, AFFTA has not kept up with the industry). Spey line weights seem to be 40-200% heavier than the corresponding single hand lines. That adds quite a bit of apples to oranges to the discussion.

If you like the Commando line with your 9 foot, 5 weight graphite rod, look for a 9 foot, single handed 6 or 7 weight glass blank. If you want a little bit longer rod, you can put a stent under the lower rod grip and the reelseat. You should still get the feeling that the rod bends into the grip.

One cheap possibility is to find an older 9 foot glass rod (or longer) on eBay and strip it to the blank. Then rebuild it how you want it. The old rod may cost you less than a good cork grip and reelseat.


Tom

As noted above, there really aren’t many options anymore. For blanks, even James Green doesn’t make (to my knowledge, at least) a 10ft blank as light as you’re looking for. I own (and love) his black glass 10ft 5wt ‘trophy trout’ blank, and it’s really more like a 10ft 5/6 - I use a 250gr Commando on it. I’ve tried a 200gr and it really needs more.

Probably your only option for a blank is a custom roll from CTS in New Zealand, but it’s going to be very expensive. I explored it with them about a year ago, and they were going to be able to make me a 10’3” 3wt with a grain window of about 175-250gr but all in it was going to cost around $700 for the blank alone. If you’re able to spend that, I’m sure it would be a great rod.

Probably you’re best bet is to keep an eye out for an Echo Glass 3wt switch. That would fit your bill as 200gr is really nice on that rod. If you’re a member over a speypages, it might be worthwhile posting a want ad. Someone might have one squirrelled away.

But you can’t have mine!

Oh, and the AFTMA spey line ratings are basically meaningless at this point.

For perspective sake, it should be noted that to get such a longer -- 10 and half foot or longer, light weight -- blank to preform in trout spey -- not overhead -- style, you will need a line weight-rated in the range of a conventional size 9 or 10 line. And that is for a light graphite blank! a slower, heavier fiberglass rod could require an even heavier line.

Spey/Scandi casts require an initial load based on sticking a fairly short amount of heavy line outside the rod --usually on the water -- rather than loading the rod in the air. To get that resistance, a lot of weight is needed to make the longer lever (rod) work to its potential. And then, to get the right presentation of the heavy line you have to add a tip --10' or so -- for delicacy or sink rate which adds even more weight. .

Weight wise, you cannot compare 1 to 1 lines for trout speying with a short -- 9' or so -- graphite rod to those need for the longer rods.