Have heart, Ladyfisher. There've just got to be a whole bunch of kids out there as gullible as I was to the lure of the sport. To me, fly fishing was a condensation of all the good things nature had to offer. Being streamside with a fly rod, cheap, unbalanced, unwieldy or otherwise, and being able to catch a trout, was everything in the world to me. I shunned expensive equipment because of two things: The lack of money (very important), and a propensity to be somewhat equipment unfriendly while pursuing the sport. There's nothing more depressing than spending a lot of money on a rod and then slamming a car door on it. There's no reason, too me, that fly rods have to be of outstanding quality in order to attract new entrants to fly fishing. So long as they are usable at all, a WalMart fly rod package, when coupled with a genuine love of the outdoors, should suffice. Its a mentality, the way I see it, and if the mentality isn't there, then there isn't much pleasure, anyway. Tight lines!