Educate me.

[Trigg]

But before I would plunk down my hard earned money for the more expensive rod, my guiding principle would have to be is it worth five times as much to me? Is the quality of the rod worth five times as much?

This is the point. The high-end rods are better. They're lighter, crisper, more responsive, recover faster, and most have nicer components. But the way to think about it is if the best fly rods cost $800 and are a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10, then most $400 rods are a 9, and rods in the $200 range are an 8. You start to pay a lot for a small incremental improvement. Is it worth it? Well, we all spend it on something. It up to you what you spend it on.