Sport,

It is good to see someone with an historical perspective. I frequently get asked what it was like fishing with Isaac Walton.

They (9'-10' Fast Rods) are like Color TV. To oversimplify, once everyone had perfectly good Color Televisions in the 19-29" range, what happened? Did people stop buying TVs and start getting sets of the Great Books? No, we got a whole slew of bigger, thinner, clearer, plasma, digital gagets that cost more. My favorite thing is watching the adds that show how great their fidelity and resolution is on my standard 27" Magnovox

Back to the rods. Howell Raines said,"Orvis is the only one making money on fly fishing."

John Gierach pointed out,"You might find out that you can't cast any further with your new Orvis than you did with the Eagle Claw."

Do people listen?

That 'splains why we have the ever escalating rod wars. Next let me to point out that the 8 and 8 1/2 foot rods are easy to find. eBay is brimming with them. The fact that the rods are used is not a problem since Fly Fishing has a well established tradition of preferring old stuff.

And, besides the bamboo craze, there is even a faddish return to glass under weigh. It is acceptable to show up at the chalkstream with a White Wonderod provided you have a good line about how you spent months searching for the model finally locating one in Cape Town. Don't tell anyone that Cape Town is the nickname for your garage.

The same independent spirit, that inspired "exempt employees" to exchange their white shirts for pastel shirts in the 60's, lives on. You are free not to buy one of those $800 leading edge space age technology lifetime waranteed things. Besides, in about 5 years, you can get one on eBay for $70-80 plus shipping.

Once I thought Silaflex was the name to conjure with.