The rod is absolutely super looking. "Understated Elegance" would be a nice catalog description. The bamboo work is superb. All the corners are sharp on the hex and it's straight as an arrow. The finish on this blonde rod is a rubbed oil finish that has a wonderful satin sheen instead of a high gloss finish you often see on bamboo. Very classy. The hardware is bright, mostly nickel silver I'm guessing. The ferrule and guide wraps are a rich brown color, like dark motor oil. They're tipped in very dark brown, almost black. The silk wraps are somewhat transparent - you can see the guide feet under them. This is a really nice look and absolutely comes to life in the sunshine. The uplocking reel seat has a burl madrone insert. From butt to tip the rod is seven feet.

It was too dark to lawn cast it on the Friday evening it arrived so Saturday morning I set out for Mill Creek here in Missouri to do some casting/fishing to the wild trout there. Armed with the new rod and a new reel spooled with a Mastery DT4 XPS line from Scientific Anglers my first few casts were on the grass at the picnic area at Mill. The action was exactly what I'd hoped for. I fished a rod very similar to this one with Jon Clarke (the rod builder) and Sue Kruetzer in Rocky Mountain National Park back in August. This rod was built on that same taper but per my request this one was made in three sections instead of the two piece rod I fished in Colorado. Without a completely clear memory of the Colorado rod to compare against I cannot tell you what differences, if any, there are between the two. But that effortless, tight, straight cast that I was wanting is the same on both.

Rod & Ross Reel	Whole Rod	Model & Maker
Agate Guide	San Miguel #2	Two Tips
Mark Devino	Whole Rod	Reel Seat

I started my upstream adventure at Mill with a small dry fly tied on. The water was high and swift. The nice slick pools that you can normally see trout in were running pretty fast and heavy, and there was a bit of a breeze. But I stayed with dries almost the entire day changing flies pretty often.

The rod performed exactly as expected, maybe better. As soon as I adjusted to the pace casting became very "automatic", almost like the rod is an extension of your finger. That kind of casting quality made the rod a really efficient tool to fish with. And what a pleasure! For the first time on small water I really felt like I had complete control over the line. Every cast was straight on the money, unfurling in the air like it's supposed to and landing soft as a feather. The action of my rod was intended to be a little on the fast side for bamboo.

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