These days air travel has become a real pain and the real Thanksgiving miracle occurs if and when you and your bags make it to the same destination. This trip, rather than throwing the dice by checking my expensive rods, and too leery of the airlines “holiday good cheer” to try and carry them on, I decided to do something a little different and it really got me thinking.

I started out in this game many years ago with extremely cheap fly rods. Alright “cheap” may not be the best way to describe them because it really speaks to the quality and not the price. These were inexpensive to be sure, less than $50. As for the cheap part I was really not sure at the time, however, on this trip I intended to figure that out. Over the years I upgraded to the higher quality more expensive rods that most avid fly fisherman have come to rely on. Sage, Winston, Scott, Loomis, Thomas & Thomas, St Croix, and many more offer their full range of moderate to expensive fly rod options. Construction material, performance, marketing, demands are only a few of the factors that dictate the prices of these products. I have often wondered if there was a real difference. So I left my high priced favorites at home and purchased a cheap rod from a “big box” retailer when I arrived in Boston.

I have to say I had no buyer’s remorse paying $44.70 for what look like a quality fly rod. I was even given the option of a 4 year insurance policy against breakage for an extra $4.75. I declined. The brand is really not all that important. There are plenty of inexpensive options and, for the most part, they all seemed to have the same quality. Sure they lacked nickel silver eyes and reel seats and the construction methods and material are not quite the same, but nearly all of the options were light weight with nice cork handles and a fine finish.

Once on the water and loaded up with a line the difference truly became apparent. The rod I bought was marked as a 6/7 weight but is was extremely whippy, soft and lacking backbone. The tip had a tendency to be disproportionately whippy and bent way deeper than the rest of the rod. It felt more like a 4 weight. It is important to understand that the backbone of the rod makes it easier to fight fish in heavy water and makes long accurate casts into the wind possible. Soft rods are usually better for beginners as they make the cast timing a little easier to figure out. Even with that said this inexpensive rod was soft and difficult to cast. It was easily overloaded and not very consistent. I was surprised in some ways however. I expected to either find no difference between the moderately priced higher end rods ($250-400) or find that the rod would be unfishable. It was neither. I fished with it and would call it less that ideal but it would make a great option in a pinch. It caught plenty of fish.