fellas,

My wife (in a month) and I will be going on a trout fishing trip with my father-in-law (in a month) to a stocked stream. Bennett springs if you know it?

I'm thinking I may be able to use this as an excuse to by a shakey head rod since she'll need a lighter action rod for the trip  ...... I spend about 99.9% more time bass fishing rather than trout.

What rod should I get that will pull double duty well? I was thinking a 7'-ish M/L action St. Croix Avid.

What do you think? Any other suggestions are welcome.

That would be a darn fine choice! I prefer a 7' ML for trout and obviously the Avid is a great rod.

Have fun!

My two main spinning rigs for bass fishing are what I use for trout. One is a 7'2" Crucial dropshotting rod, M power fast action. This is my favorite for troutfishing, and it does great at it. Pretty soft tip, medium action (although it is probably a little closer to ML). I imagine a shakey head rod would be similar to a dropshotting rod.

The other is a 6'6" IMX, M power fast action - a real pleasure to use for trout, but the Crucial is a little better suited to trout because the tip isn't as stiff as the Loomis.

I think your shakey head rod would be great, and 7' is a good length  

Although I generally prefer 7' rods, I have the AS66MLF for my light rig. It seems "right" for the applications you want, especially if you get the 1000 size reels. I have the Stella 1000FA on mine and it matches nicely.

8-)