I have a collection of traditional one handed fly rods. I have come to enjoy 3 wts. more and 6 wts. less. For steelhead and salmon, I have a collection of 9′ rods in the 8 wt. to 10 wt. range. And, of course plenty of reels, spare spools and all the lines to match. Like most addictions, I don’t compute the cost, the price, the toll. Denial and gratification.

So, when I first went spey casting in the early 90’s on the Deschutes R. it was a novel experience swinging a telephone pole about and yes when I didn’t wrap the line around me and embed the barbed hook in some part of my attire, I did launch that fly a respectable distance…and as they say, farther than I could with a conventional single handed rod. As much as that must irritate the hell out of an excellent single handed caster…the formula remains even for him/her….they too would out distance their selves with a two hander.

So, I bit. I have a couple of spey rods. The initial mid range priced telephone pole; heavy and ponderous. I should shop it to a local high school track team for the pole vault. Next I sprung for an Echo set up and it has been beautiful. Perfect. Of course, along comes the next phase of switch rods. Why do I resent this? Why don’t I embrace it?

A dose of random, temporary guilt. So little time, so little opportunity. Some ancient genetic makeup inserts itself of late…’make do’ …’you don’t use what you have’….’you have a nice spey rod, learn how to use the damn thing’. So, for you fly fishers without a compass toward restraint…the switch rod might be the new tool in the arsenal. I have linked to a couple nice articles by Greg Nielsen at Shasta Trout that give a good overview of switch rods. The pieces were written several years ago, so the weapon has been around awhile. I know several youngsters dominating the mid-size river chrome circuit with switches. They seem particularly well suited to mid size streams streams with big fish. Any stream for that matter.