After receiving it, I am amazed at how well put together it appears to be. Just the right flex, maybe a little softer than my Sage RPL 8-wt, but plenty of backbone. IMO, IM6 is a more than adequate graphite. My guess is the 5 and 6 are probably very fishable. These are assembled in China hence the low price. Honestly, if a tsunami hit Sebastopol and washed away all my Sage rods, I think I'd buy these to restock my equipment. These days, I don't think you need to mortgage the house to get very usable equipment.
I bought the 8wt which would be perfect for an entry-level steelhead rod. Like I mentioned, it is a little softer than my Sage RPL, which I don't necessarily think is a bad thing. Buy it, then send it back if you don't like it.
I just picked up an 8 weight and a 3 Forks reel...$70 bucks for the pair. A shooting head line and a dozen steelhead flies will cost me more than the rod and reel!
Sounds pretty good. I've never owned a graphite reel so I can't say much about that one except that I have Rulon disc drag Ross reel that has never let me down on big fish - steelhead, salmon, trout.
I would also get some 25lb backing and amnesia to backfill the reel. You need to put the dacron backing on first, then the amnesia, then the shooting head. You MUST use dacron. If you use monofilament, it will swell and crack your reel.
If you have a decent fly shop in your area, you might want to take the reel in and buy the dacron and amnesia from them if they aren't charging a rip-off price. Then you can get them to wind it on the reel to the proper amount. Without an automatic winder, it can be tricky to get the right amount of dacron on a new reel as you have to estimate the length. Too little and you will be minimizing your retrieve rate (smaller circumference) and your backup for big fish (if a big salmon spools you, you will kick yourself). Too much and you might not be able to wind the shooting head onto the reel.
Finally, you can't just carry one shooting head. You are going to need at least a #2 and #4. I carry 1,2,3,4 and 6. It is just painful not have the right one when you need it. #2 and #4 cover probably about 70% of it.
