{"id":3195,"count":61,"description":"When testing fly rods, our lead tester coordinates a team of amateur and professional anglers \u2212 including other outdoor journalists, photographers, fishing guides, fish biologists and game wardens \u2212 to use the rods in a variety of conditions in a broad range of locations. We fish small creeks, big western rivers, small warm-water potholes and deep mountain lakes. To get a full range of action on the rods, we cast nymphs, streamers and dry flies. We throw tiny weightless trico patterns and big foam-bodied grasshoppers. We dredge the bottom with heavy tungsten-weighted Pat\u2019s stonefly nymphs and just break the surface with feathery hare\u2019s ears.\r\n\r\nWe have broken fly rod coverage into two core categories: Fly Rods for <a href=\"http:\/\/gearinstitute.com\/fishing\/fly-rods\/trout-fly-rods\/\">Trout Fishing<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/gearinstitute.com\/fishing\/fly-rods\/specialty-fly-rods\/\">Specialty Fly Rods<\/a>. The general-purpose trout rod represents the largest component of the fly fishing market. The most common fly rod size sold today is the 9-foot, 5-weight. This configuration provides the best versatility when targeting trout in a wide range of conditions and water bodies. Rods designed for 4-weight or 6-weight lines are also popular and fit within the \u201ctrout rod\u201d category. Specialty rods include a broad range of rod designs and configurations, including everything from lightweight rods for warm-water species, to heavy single-handed rods used to target big, salt-water fish, and even the long, two-handed spey and switch rods used primarily for salmon and steelhead.","link":"https:\/\/gearinstitute.com\/fishing\/fly-rods\/","name":"Fly Rods","slug":"fly-rods","taxonomy":"category","parent":2457,"meta":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Best Fly Rods | Reviews and Buying Advice | Gear Institute<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Our experts extensively field-tested the best Fly Rods of the year and rated the best based on transparent, objective criteria. Here are the results.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/gearinstitute.com\/fishing\/fly-rods\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Best Fly Rods | Reviews and Buying Advice | Gear Institute\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Our experts extensively field-tested the best Fly Rods of the year and rated the best based on transparent, objective criteria. 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