I recently had the extremely good fortune of winning a http://www.marchbrown.com/home.html Hidden Waters fly rod. This particular rod is a 7 piece, yes you read that correctly, 9 foot 8 weight rod. I’ve fished with a couple of multi-piece travel rods in the past and been terribly disappointed. Every “pack” rod I’d used felt stiff, clumsy, and TERRIBLY heavy. I was surprised to find the March Brown Hidden Waters feels and casts like a 2 piece rod.Let me repeat that. The March Brown Hidden Waters FEELS AND CASTS like a 2 piece rod.
Best of all it fits in my suitcase, my backpack, I can even toss it under the flap of my breifcase with just a bit of rod tube showing on each end.
A little about March Brown rods. The guys at March Brown are MIT trained aerospace engineers that are die hard fly fishermen.
Hard on your gear? How about a lifetime no excuses necessary warranty. You break it they repair or replace it for $35… no questions asked.
Here are my thoughts to date. I’ll start with positives and finish with 2 issues that bother me.
Fit and finish on the rod is excellent. I really like the quality of components from the blank sections to the guides. The feel of the individual pieces is very solid. Each piece assembles easily with enough friction that I’m not worried about the rod breaking down of its own accord while I’m casting or fighting a fish. The reel seat and hardware fit both my small Lamson and my Large Okuma equally well. The reel seat is a nice anodized aluminum as are the locking rings. It is a double uplocking seat that remained snug throught a hard day of fishing in 15-20 mph winds. I think with a simple wash down after each trip the rod will last a lifetime.
Backbone. This rod feels SOLID. I performed dead weight lifts with the rod strung as normal and my Okuma Cascade reel mounted. All lifts were performed with a simple loop of line around small dumbbell weights. Since it’s a stiff 8 wt I really wanted it to be able to dead lift 3 or more pounds. The
