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[naturelover]

Hi,

Any suggestions for a backpacking spinning rod and/or reel? Looking to get something soon hopefully.
For the rod, I was thinking of a 7' Fenwick Eagle Travel medium-light rod; 4-piece, 4-10lbs, 1/8-5/8 oz lure wt.
Anyone have experience with this rod, or have other suggestions?

Thanks.

[Animal Chin]

Depends on your definition of "backpacking" and what your priorities are. I use a collapsible from Cabelas's (think it's around $20). The advantage is I can leave it rigged up on the side of my pack. It's good for fast and light, minimalist high alpine camping, and since the fish tend to be really small anyway, I'm not worried about my rod breaking on a fish.

The downside is it's a $20 rod, so YMMV and I guess it would suck to have a guide fall off the first day of a 7 day hike... but it's never happened to me and I like the convenience of a collapsible if I come across a lake while hiking and want to take a few quick casts.

[Shinny]

I picked up a telescoping rod from Walmart for $20. It’s a 6ft rod, little overkill in weight for the small alpine fish but that’s ok. I use a Shimano 2500 reel on it and it works good. Reel is small enough to leave on the rod when moving from spot to spot and you want attach it to the outside of your backpack.

[cdjk123]

Ok, it sounds silly, but for situations like this I use a medium action ice fishing rod for casting spoons.
I pair it with 10 lb braid, and use a flouro leader. Ice fishing rods are not meant to be casting spoons, but it works surprisingly well.

I've used it while hunting for cuttthroat in the sloughs and even on the skagit. It's super tiny and doesn't ever get caught up in the bushes, and you can strap it to the side of your pack.

The only problem is that its best if they come in a 2 piece rod, you don't want a one piece rod in this scenario.

[naturelover]

Thanks for the info; I ended up going with the Fenwick. Took a look at the collapsible rods, kind of neat, my brother has one; but I plan to use this rod for more than just backpacking as it'll be my regular M-L rod. Ice fishing rod sounds like an interesting idea for multipurpose backpacking use if one already owns one (or plans to do icefishing in future).

Weight wise the Fenwick is not too much different than the collapsible; Fenwick notes it at 3.5 oz on their website, and the Quantum collapsible I looked at for $25 was 4.3oz and 1 foot shorter (6ft quantum vs. 7ft Fenwick). Though when I weighed the Fenwick at home it was 5.15oz. Nonetheless, not much difference in weight for a much better rod; plus got it for a great price of $65. Less compact than the collapsible, but for the desired multipurpose use, an acceptable tradeoff.

Thanks for the suggestions.