There has been a lot of talk lately about the value to an angler throwing streamers using “short rods”. These are rods that are usually between 7 and 8 feet long. I decided to buy a couple of Orvis Recon short rods and give them a shot. I purchased the eight and nine weight Orvis Recon short rods. They are seven feet eleven inches long.

The advantage of shorter rods is lees air resistance during your casting stroke and greater leverage when fighting large fish. Short rods also load fly lines with short heads very quickly. This allows you to deliver large bulky flies very quickly and accurately. These  Orvis Recon short rods are extremely light and coupled with a very light reel are a pleasure to throw all day long. In particular my guides are using them to fish for muskie, pike, salmon and to robo cast big streamers hunting trophy trout. They do an exceptional job for anglers fishing from boats for the above species especially throwing big offerings.

As great as they are in the above circumstances they do have shortcomings (no pun intended). The biggest weakness is if you are the rear angler in a drift boat using these length rods. If the anglers are fishing the proper direction out of the boat (approximately 45 degrees) it is very difficult to deal with the guide’s oar. You are all over that oar. Roll casting takes a little more work with less height as well as casting over foliage behind you.

The bottom line…for good casters, chasing big fish with big offerings, they are great. Use some of the short head lines like the Scientific Anglers new Cold Lines and stay in the front of the boat you’ll find these Orvis Recon short rods can’t be beat.  For average casters, wading their favorite streams using normal lines the work required to fish them probably isn’t worth the benefit.

Hawk