Your Saltwater Rods? Why?

[DEcevR]

I go from a 5wt Winston XTR thru a 19wt Cape Fear Rod and lengths from 8' thru 16' for the salt. All of them have their times and place but I have favored my 2 handed rods since the early 1990's for my feet in the sand surf fly fishing, mostly.

I really am not a proponent of this new wave of "switch rods" in line weights 10 and under and under 12' in length unless one has a physical condition which prevents them from fishing 9' single handed rods (otherwise there is no line speed advantage in using these short switch rods over a guy with a 9' single hand rod with an average dbl haul).

With ones feet in the sand and two hands on the rod there is no reason to go short or light in line weights along our coastlines where wind and wave action is usually unfavorable during our best times to fish. JMO, Go long and heavy and fish when others must head in being unable to fish the conditions with their chosen equipment. I cannot count the number of oceanfront successful times I have had fly fishing during a Nor'easter or just a strong onshore blow with my 16' 11wt using a shooting head system every fall. But, it works equally well out front with calm conditions as well. Even small fish put on quite a fight when on a 16' rod (that is a lot of leverage length for the fish)

[SteveGibson]

I have two 6-weight TICRX TFO rods, two 8-weight TICRX TFOs, a 9-weight TICRX TFO and a 12-weight TFO.

I use the 6s and 8s the most. I have one of each rigged with floating line and one of each with sinktip line. The 9-weight is my beef stick for the Gulf of Mexico and has a sinktip line.

[saltydancindave]

For the most fun with ladyfish, pompano, sea trout & snook on the beach in the summer an Orvis Trident #6 with a WF-6-F or the WF-7-I for the surf makes the fish fights fantastic. Although it's considered a little light for the bigger flies & stronger winds that redfish & snook usually require leaves choices of: a Loomis GL4 #8 or a yet to be cast TFO #8, the Orvis T3 #9 which usually gets preference for the flats & mangrove shorelines, a TFO #10 for cobia & baby tarpon or for the even bigger fish an Orvis #11 TL Powermatrix, an Orvis #12 Trident or a Penn #12/13 for offshore. Been considering taking shorter rods like a #7 weight 8' rod to the salt for the backcountry & a couple of 5' + fiberglass trout rods to see how much enjoyment they would provide but never swapped out the flylines on to a salt water reel........saw a new Scott 7' 11"(?) #9 weight at the last CHFF fly fishing club meeting that got kudos from all that had fished it......even for harbor tarpon around 125 lbs.; which might be even better than going to freshwater tackle in the salt