Blog

Last season I fished an ECHO Glass on my local trout stream and found that glass is just an awesome way to catch trout.

When Tim Rajeff first announced the Glass Rods way back in 2013, I thought What! Glass! Oh no! Why? (Hey I remember Glass the first time around 🙂 ) And when they arrived at our door sometime in late February (2014) I took one out waggled it, thought mmhh, grunted in disapproval and put it away with the rest of them in our store room.

A few weeks later I took a 6’9″ 3 weight out of the store-room and drove down to my local trout stream to give it a try-out. What an outing, tailing loop followed tailing loop I wasn’t used to the slow action of the rod but that wasn’t all I rose a fish and then it came off! This was repeated a few times. Disaster. Like a beginner, I couldn’t set the hook correctly! Back in the office I felt that my initial misgivings about glass were confirmed, and not only could I not understand what all the hype was about, but also why so many of our customers were buying these “things.”

After that first outing pressure of work (spring fairs) caused me to put the glass 369’er on ice for a few weeks, and it wasn’t until the end of April that I decide to give “it” another chance.  This time I wasn’t shocked by the action of the rod, I slowed down and presto I could actually put a fly down where I wanted to.

Throwing a size 14 hopper-popper type of fly, I landed the fly underneath an overhanging branch; sure enough I had my first take, and the fish stayed on. The first impression of the rod with a fish on was, “this is awesome, you can feel every move the fish made, every twist and turn and every head shake.” It felt like a larger fish and was a little concerned the rod wouldn’t have enough “welly” to keep it out of the submerged branches. I coaxed the fish around the branches and worked it into a position where I could land it. I was surprised to see that my “monster” was only a normal sized trout. As the afternoon went on I hooked more fish and slowly but surely my attitude towards the Echo Glass was changing – it made every fight super fun, even for the smaller fish and the larger ones, mind blowing! This was FUN. I liked the rod so much that I ended up using it on my local trout stream for the whole of last season.

If you are looking for a rod to fish small and/or technical streams (I call it combat fishing) then look no further; the ECHO Glass rods are short enough to pop a fly under hanging branches but still have enough power to make longer casts.

Pros

• Very sensitive
• Lots of fun
• Ability to land fly delicately
• Brilliant for Roll Casting in difficult locations
• Great for dry flies and emergers
• Dont break very easily

Cons

• The learning curve from graphite
• Difficulties casting into a head wind

let us know what you think about Glass fly rods …