Echo Bad Ass Glass Fly Rods with Tim Rajeff: New Fly Rods from I-Cast
Words By: North 40 Outfitters
Posted: January 25, 2018
What's new with Echo Fly Rods? One thing that came out of I-Cast this last year was a new spin on an old classic, fiberglass fly rods. Watch the video below and see what Tim Rajeff has to say about the new Bad Ass Glass series of rods from Echo. We also have an in-depth review of this rod from the great Falls Fly Shop right here.

Hi, I'm Tim Rajeff. I'm the owner and the rod designer for Echo Fly Rods. We're here at ICAST so it's kind of cool, you get to see all of next year's products all under one roof.

What are these blue things in my hand? These are Bad Ass Glass Fly Rods. These glass rods kind of bring a little bit of the higher performance level that you're used to with your carbon fiber, and high modulus graphite rods into what you can do with a fiberglass fly rod.

What did you say? Why would somebody want a fiberglass fly rod? Interesting. You know glass rods are made from fibers that stretch more than carbon fibers. So for me, what that does, is translates into a little more feel. Is this the rod that's going to throw 190 feet into a crosswind and hit the other side of the pond? Maybe not. You might sacrifice a little bit of line speed but what you gain is more feel and that soul is kind of why I think a lot of people are getting into glass rods, both for spey and saltwater and all these other type of game fish, where we thought we left fiberglass rods with our wooden tennis rackets in the closet.

Another benefit of fiberglass in general is that since the fibers stretch three percent, when a rod starts to really max out your fighting a fish, carbon fiber rods, the fibers only stretch a little less or about one percent and you'll either pull the hook or break your tippet. With fiberglass it keeps stretching and giving and giving so a lot of people feel they can put more pressure on a fish when they're fighting it.

New for this year is eight foot fiberglass fresh and saltwater rods. These Bad Ass Glass Rods are eight feet and they come in a number six, so that's your trout streamer stick, you're fishing for bluegill, smallmouth bass, all the way up to a ten weight. The ten weight stick you can throw muskie, you can go saltwater fishing for tarpon and everything. So at eight feet these new rods feel, come through the air quicker than our other nine foot glass rods so when you want to have more fun when you hit the water check out a Bad Ass Glass in the eight footers. Go to North 40, get one of these sticks, have more fun.