I have a strong opinion of the large rod makers. I have watched many rods that I thought could not get better be discontinued to put out a new line to generate sales. I understand this and when you base your business model on selling 10's of thousands of rods a year it is a necessary to continue to replace product lines. Some of these discontinued rods fetch quite a price on Ebay and are snatched up very quickly.
A good friend and I, after talking about the very issue of being on a prostaff and promoting a rod is the best thing ever and having to tell all the same people that thats no good you need this every other year, Decided to do something on our own.
We teamed up with an established local blank maker and set up shop. We now are building our own dream rods. The rods that we want to fish with in each line weight for the species of fish we use it for. Not a line of similar feeling rods but a specific feel for each line weight. We think we have achieved our goal on a line of 10 rods but have 3-4 more rods we we like to design and build. Most fishermen would think we took it to the extreme but we felt passionate enough about casting to invest our savings into it. we will see later if it was the right thing to do.
-Jeff