Originally Posted by
whatfly
You mean one of those telescoping Japanese dapping pole? Try casting a heavy streamer to the middle of a decent river with one. Fine on a smallish stream, but an even more limited tool than a two-hander, IMHO.
The spey rod is an interesting tool, and fun to play with, but an awful lot of folks seems to get them for all the wrong reasons, and I'm still unconvinced they are as versatile as a standard one-handed rod. Would recommend you take a serious look at a "switch" rod (what Winston calls "micro-spey") as opposed to a full two-hander, if you are just going after trout. I have not had a chance to try them yet, but Orvis introduced a line of very affordable switch/spey rods this year (the Clearwater line). Line choice is not that complicated these days because you can either by a matching line or just find an 2-3x oversized WF line, and you'll be ready to go.