Hey man, I feel your pain. I was in school last year and money was real tight. For my birthday I bought a 10'6" 8-10 test, lamiglass on sale at fishermans marine for $125. I found that I didn't enjoy float fishing as much as I thought. The good news was that it also made an excellent spinner rod, due to the extra length. Secondly it makes an excellent summer steelie/silver salmon drift rod. I would definitely go with the float rod. I have an 8 weight steelie fly rod that I have used very few times. I like the satisfaction of nailing more fish on bait.