AnonymousSoreMouther

Congrats on your new rig. What exactly did you end up with? I really like NRX rods, both fly and conventional. I was fortunate enough to visit with Gary at his place in Washington and spend a few days out on the river with him fishing the NRX rods not long after they were released many years ago. Very fun and educational trip. Gary is the reason we're all fishing graphite today. I fish mostly Dobyns now just due to variety of rods they offer. I find the Xtasty line excellent as well. I don't think you can go wrong with either of these. Really, once your get to the premium money rods, they're all pretty great at what they were designed to do. It comes down to matching rods to specific techniques, and the angler's natural inclinations while fishing. Bottom contact rods are definitely where to spend the money, if you're going to spend it. It's the only type of rod I'm willing to begrudgingly pay $300+/stick. I do agree with other folks that you might have spent that same $ getting multiple setups that cover more ground at this stage in your fishing journey, but a really great bottom contact rod will see work for the rest of your life. Buy once, cry once.

Fish that carry good omens are my favorite fish

I’d say life owes you trophy fish, and I hope you collect. Cheers to your improving health and upcoming time on the water.

Central Oregon. World class rainbow, brown, bull trout, and bass fishing. High lakes and river, so there's tons of variety. I had folks catch and then cull their PB multiple times in the same day, sometimes of multiple species. Definitely more productive to fly fish a lot of that water, but you can gear fish most of the high lakes and there are absolute tanks swimming in that water. The fist time I had ever saw big swimbaits and glidebats was there back in the day. Coming from the South, I was confident we were waisting our time, and I packed a T-Rig rod so I could actually produce fish. Never picked it up, and I was legitimately sore the next days from boat flipping hawgs. I've been spoiled by some truly incredible days on the water all across the country. A good chunk of my favorite days were in Central Oregon.