Quote Originally Posted by whatfly View Post
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.
I had and tried a 6wt switch rod briefly, and came to suspect the "switch" concept is highly overrated. You can cast them overhead, but, believe me, you don't want to. People may or may not find a valid use for a two-handed rod for trout fishing, but if you think a casting single-hand rod will tire you out, try casting a switch rod overhead for very long.