Gorge Fly Shop Blog: Echo Glass 7129-4 Rod Review

"Giving you the feedback missing from stiff graphite actions."

Echo Glass 7129-4

ECHO GLASS - Two-Hand rods are the smooth easy casting rods.

Recently, I was lucky enough to be able to demo the new Echo Glass 12’9” 7wt spey rod for a few days. I was pretty eager to get my hands on one, and having heard some rumors about it’s potential, I really wanted to put it to the test.

Dark olive guide and accent wraps

I quickly realized that my prejudice towards glass rods was stronger than I had thought. My first impression of the rod was based completely on years of bias against glass rods. I was expecting this rod to be heavy, awkward, lackluster in power, and too slow in action. This soon developed into a lesson in putting prejudice aside and just going into it with an open mind.

While the rod is a bit heavier than my graphite 7126-4 rod, (8.4 oz vs 6.4 oz) it still balances out a Lamson Speedster 4 just fine, and that is not a heavy reel. 8.4 oz is still not very heavy. A Sage One 8136-4 weighs the same as this glass rod. The biggest factor that makes up for the weight of the rod is that it is incredibly powerful. There is very little effort required to cast a country mile. You are expending less energy to get more distance. A heavy rod is a burden if it requires a lot of energy to generate the line speed necessary to get it moving, but I quickly forgot all about rod weight and was more interested in dialing in the big slow cast that catapults my fly and line across the river.

I fished both the Hood and the Deschutes with this rod. A few hours on each river and I had fallen in love. I certainly enjoyed casting Scandi and Rage Compact lines on the Deschutes. The slow, gentle casting stoke was a breeze and came very naturally. I had honed in my spey casting skills on a G. Loomis Skagit Dredger years ago, but have never found a rod that was slow and deliberate, yet powerful like that rod was, until now. The glass rod is even more powerful than the Dredger, but has a similar action.

While the small fly and Scandi line set-up was a ton of fun, the rod really excels at casting Skagit lines and big flies. I tried a couple of lines and decided that I like the Airflo Skagit Compact 480 or 510 grain head the best on this rod. While the 510 was my favorite, it was on the heavier side of the grain window, which is not a terrible thing to do with a slower action rod. Speaking of which, I have cast quite a few single had glass rods and almost all of them have been a very slow action. This glass spey is quite moderate. I mean it is slower than most of the graphite rods on the market, but I was certainly expecting it to be much, much slower.

ECHO Spey

I threw on a 12.5’ T-8 tip and a big weighted intruder onto the Skagit head. That combination was absolutely perfect. After a few minutes of slllloooowwwwiiinggg it down, my casting stroke had relaxed enough that the fly was effortlessly hitting the other side of the river. I wish the Hood was bigger because every cast screamed for thirty or more feet to work with. It was actually hard to stop cast from hitting the end of the line at full speed, nearly yanking the rod and reel from my hands.

This rod is the absolute opposite of the 12’6” 7wt graphite spey rod I picked up last year. The action, the classic feel, the casting stroke, the action of playing a fish and the price tag are all about as far off as you can get from each other, yet still provide the same high-quality experience.

Echo Glass - Smooth easy casting rods

As our awesome Rajeff Sports rep Eric Neufeld said, a lot of guys will buy this rod as a backup or a toy to play with, but will quickly move it into the go-to slot in the arsenal… This is a rod that can be fished regularly with ease and is such a joy to cast that my Winston and my Sage might see a little more time in the closet this winter.

Thanks again to Eric Neufeld of Raging River Sales for letting me demo this rod for the weekend. I can’t wait to see the full line-up coming this winter.

ECHO GLASS Rod features: