No they are not worth the money, unless you think they are. I admit, I own a few high end rods, Loomis, Lamiglass, sold the Sage. But when I was just out of high school in 81, I worked at at a wholesale sporting goods supplier called Pacific Marine Shwabaucher, in downtown Seattle. I worked in the returns dept. and we would see every sporting good item you could imagine. Well, Eagle Claw came out with a new rod called the Blue Diamond, needless to say, we had many returns. Eagle Claws policy was to destroy the rods. I received permission to keep all the rods. The summer that I worked there, I made enough money to buy a Corvette. I was 18 years old. I would mix and match the rods, and sell for $15. It was better than selling drugs, totally legal with repeat HAPPY customers.

LOL, I still have a Blue Diamond spinning rod in my rod stash. The reel seat came unglued after a few years of use.
SF

Still got my Yellow Eagle Claw trout rod. Reel seat is just fine. The guides on the other hand, GONE! A project to wrap new guides on it,... some day.

Caught lots of cutthroat with that rod.

The Blue Diamond was Eagle Claws attempt at an affordable graphite rod. It was a failure for them, and a gold mine for me.

My 1st high dollar(?) rod was a Loomis GL3, several years ago, for a whopping $285. I bought it for the sensitivity, as I was just getting into steelhead drift fishing, and learning the feel of a steelhead bite was difficult. What I did was 'buy' bite lessons from a good sensitive rod. Since then, I have not paid more that $200 for any rod. The last one I bought was around $170 or so, it was the total price for the components of a rod that Eric built for me. Lightweight, durable, very sensitive.
Now I can feel the fish open their mouth before they take the bait!
Not to mention, I can cast my gear much farther into the trees on the opposite shore.........Life is Good

There is some truth to this.

When I was cutting my teeth on summer run fishing a long time ago(light line fishing eggs), I began with a loaner rod from a friend that had been through it's paces and was beat to hell…..an 8 1/2' Lamiglas S-Glass fiberglass noodle rod with broken ferrule glued together, 1" missing from tip, a couple guides re-wrapped in a hurry and out of alignment……..and I could detect bites as well as any rod I use today!

One of the best Cowlitz fishermen I know (and a member of this board) does VERY well with rods that are not $500 efforts.

I remember the Blue Diamond, my spinning rod broke very soon after I bought it.

I has a Loomis G3 (?) several years ago that a friend gave me, he had a relationship with Lamiglas, anyway it was a nice float rod and it performed well until the day a fish ran under a log jam and I was tangled up. In the process of trying to break off, the tip section of the two piece rod snapped and slid down the line and into the river and was lost.

I replaced it with a $75 Shimano and found I liked it better than the Loomis for float fishing. It is a little heavy to fish all day, but than is the only downside I have found with it.

I have several 30 year old plus Fenwick glass rods in spinning and casting that I took as partial payment for photographing Jimmy Green for the Fenwick Catalog cover back then. I am still using them.

I wish I still had the four piece Fenwick Spinning rod that I had personally made with my Father-in-laws name. He died before I had a chance to give it to him.

I used it so hard that I worn it out after about 25 years and lost the tip while hiking with the four loose pieces in my day pack on a trip to Ontario.

Had I known that I probably could have has Gregg's in Lake Stevens, build me a replacement tip I probably would still be using it.

Now I have so many rods I have at least one set up for any kind of fishing I do.

I wonder what my daughters and son-in-laws will do when I kick the bucket since they have almost as many rods as I do?

my 5 year old shimano convergence is as sensitive as a gloomis, shimano rods are made of loomis blanks they are the same company all you are paying is for the loomis name.

NO, they are not worth the extra money, period!

A $500 rod is not worth it. However, buying a $35,000 to $40,000 truck to trailer a $20,000 boat all to haul around a fishing rod worth $69.95 makes more since.

about 30 years ago somebody showed me something that was very amazing. this was shown to me on graphite that was not at all anything special.

he had me hold the rod as if I was actually fishing it, minus a reel. he then put the tip of the rod up to his neck where his throat was. he put a small bend to the tip, then says "can you feel that?" I could feel his vocal cords through the blank into my hand. I was blown away by the sensitivity of the graphite rod. I believe I paid $69 for that rod.

the graphite rods these days are very superior to the graphite of 30 years ago.

every rod on a rod rack will detect vocal chord vibrations, if it can do that it will detect a steelhead bite.

it cracks me up these days cause our grandfathers had heavy stiff fiberglass rods and caught many steelhead with out dropping even $50 on a rod. somewhere along the line steelhead fishers has fallen into buying elite brands to feel as though that's the secret. i'd suggest a guy try fishing with a heavy metal ferruled fiberglass rod for an entire day. then fish his average rod of today he will be truly amazed!

^^^
We do this exact test so customers can feel the difference between different rods! You take a $100 rod and do it they think wow that's cool. Then we do it with a rod we build using high end components and blanks and every time they proceed to place an order. There is a very big difference especially doing what you described above when comparing higher end rod blanks.

since 85% of steelhead fisherman these days can't catch a fish without a bobber. a $40 dollar pile of crap rod will detect the bite as well as 13' sturgeon rod.

i'm making this point because guys are buying super elite rods only to watch a bobber that delivers no bite detection to the rod what so ever.

it's only a matter time till the most elite bobbers cost $90.

When using longer rods for float fishing having a light weight rod makes for a much better experience and in some cases allows you to fish more effectively over the course of a long day. Try holding up an 11" rod that feels like it has 4 lbs attached to the tip all day. I use high end rods for float fishing not because it will detect a bite but because it feels weightless when I'm holding the rod up high all day.

Also, if you float fish long enough you can detect not only fish grabbing your presentation and letting go by sight you can also feel subtle ticks that are fish biting. 95% of float fisherman don't even know they have missed either of these fish.

A lot of vibration coming though the blank are absorbed by fore grip. Unfortunately most off the shelf rods, high end and cheap, have some sort of fore grip.

So catching fish without a float makes someone a better fisherman? Drift fishing is how I learned to steelhead fish and still do it in the right conditions. Is it any harder to catch fish drift fishing than float fishing? Nope. Half the time drift fishing or side drifting the fish hook themselves so most people don't even have to feel or see the bite. Pulling plugs, casting spinners and spoons, pretty easy to catch fish with all these techniques. Swinging flies, that must be how real fisherman catch steelhead.

watching your line and float for suttle movement . the high viz /line will slightly twich befor your rod will even detect anything and i dont even care if its nfc hm blanks for float fishing .....use the force ... rod has nothing to do with it float fishing period.

Now I agree with this....completely........I do have a two - 13' rods that I use for float fishing, both are set up the same....Stradic 2500 or 3000 reels, PP Hi Vis 40#.......length of the rod, allows me to "mend" the line.....I also have been using floats that are 6 - 6.5", and not very thick. I dress the line, at least every few days.....helps keep the line from getting "water logged"......

Back to what this thread is about..........both my 13' rods, cost me less than $500.00....1 is a Lamiglas and the other a Rain shadow, both 3 piece, both just "fat get the job done".

If it feels good. Do it. Im over it. I don t spend the big bucks on rods anymore. They are nice to hold on too, but not necessary to catch fish. I need more nice guns. I have the rods.

+1

I max out @ $495 lol.

Spent that years ago on my factory Sage CT 290, I was going to have a custom 290 made up but when I crunched all the numbers it worked better for me to buy a factory stick. The Sage no questions repair was the big factor for me.

Just found myself a like new CT 296 up in BC thats mine now, only fished twice w/ tube & unmarked card $450. I look at these as investment rods, when I'm done w/ them the factory rods will always have a better market value.


c/22

I have dozens of Carbon Fiber rods and am a composite-aerospace guy!
But I still find myself picking up an old quartz/glass rod I built back in the 70's and has just as good a feel as any of my high end graphite rods!
It really comes down to what feels good to you! Any rod will catch fish.

Seriously? Luke Skywalker
If you have any amount of line on the water behind a float you ain't feelin shiit. I don't care what rod your fishin. Ive watched summerruns in gin clear water eat my jig and spit it out I didn't feel anything...... but impressed
Sure sounds good though.
I think if if it comes down to spending big bucks I choose reel over rod,heck we that grew up fishing in the 70s didn't have choice there was no highend....Os