Hi Colston,

I generally don't buy new rods. The ones I have mostly bought in the last few years have been used. That said, I did buy two new rods a few years ago before a trip to yellowstone, as I did not have a travel rod, and looked quite a while on Ebay, but finally gave up and bought two new relatively inexpensive travel rods. The two rods worked fine.

Other than that, I have bought used rods, primarily because of the different type of fishing that I do. I am now to the point of starting to buy blanks to build rods to get the rods I want for a whole lot less money.

Fundamentally, though, I share your thinking, it seems a pretty good waste to buy the newest and finest, when a rod I already have works fine. There are folks who cast well enough that a better rod may make a difference in the casting that they do, but with my casting skills, or the lack of them, most rods are better than I can master.

It makes you wonder, though, and I have wondered if the fly rod makers change models every few years because sales of a given model slow down, because they do have a somewhat improved model that preforms a bit better than the old model so they introduce it to keep up with or get ahead of the competition, because fads in rods come and go, or because they knwo that some folks simply must sell the old so that they can have the newest and finest model.

At any rate I am with you, can't see buying the newest and finest just to have the newest and finest.

Regards,

Gandolf