There is a short list of guides that I'd like to spend time with and Dagur Árni Guðmundsson is on top as he splits his time focused on carp in California with a few months each summer back home in Iceland mixing it up with oversized brown trout and Atlantic salmon on the fly. He's prolific on Instagram with reels and posts if you aren't following already.
When the ECHO Fly Fishing Glass Spey was first released, Dagur got his hands on the 3-weight and within a couple of weeks, put a few notes together that he sent my way. I copied and pasted them into a draft post and then kind of forgot about it until this morning when I was scrolling through the 100+ posts in draft waiting for the light of being published. If I remember correctly, there is a follow-up that Dagur sent that I'll find to publish soon, too.
Anyway, take a moment to read Dagur's take and notes on the ECHO Glass Spey...
When the ECHO Fly Fishing Glass Spey was first released, Dagur got his hands on the 3-weight and within a couple of weeks, put a few notes together that he sent my way. I copied and pasted them into a draft post and then kind of forgot about it until this morning when I was scrolling through the 100+ posts in draft waiting for the light of being published. If I remember correctly, there is a follow-up that Dagur sent that I'll find to publish soon, too.
Anyway, take a moment to read Dagur's take and notes on the ECHO Glass Spey...
Dagur wrote... "I like fun. I drink beer and eat burritos because they make life more fun, and I use glass fly rods because they’re more fun than the stiff metal sticks. And the new Echo Glass Spey 3-weight is exactly that, extremely fun. Here are some of my first thoughts after playing around with it for a few weeks.
The new Glass Spey rods are pretty sticks, translucent tan-ish blanks with green wraps that pop like a bright green hot sauce on a steaming hot burrito. The cork is nice, and the green-ish metal reel seat is really pretty. Not that any of these things actually make the rod perform any better, but I like pretty things, and this rod is beautiful. And that makes it more fun I think.
Performance wise, I’m loving it. It bends deeply, but has a lot of power in the butt section, which makes it almost “fast” in fiberglass terms while bending really nicely and giving you great feel in the cast while responding well to a faster casting style. It handles a variety of lines and casting styles well, and has a good punch into the wind when you need it. It bends deeply when fighting fish, but has plenty of power to kick some ass while protecting lighter tippets. I’ve mostly been using the rod dry fly fishing for carp with a light scandi line and long tippets, and it has surprised me with how sweetly it fits that style of fishing.
This rod would make for a sweet small river steelhead or Atlantic salmon rod, but also handles heavier lines well. I threw a variety of heavier lines on it as well for some trout in lakes in my area, which the rod handled well, from a full sink Scandi head to short Skagit heads and tips up to T-8. You definitely have to slow down a bit more with the heavier lines, but it handles smaller streamers well, and I’m excited to use this in Iceland for some chunky browns this summer.
As I stated above, this rod handled a nice variety of lines. I found the sweet spot for the dry line scandi to be around 240 grain, and at that weight it handles a light short sink tip on the end of it as well. I used the Scientific Anglers Scandi Spey Lite Integrated line at 240 grain, and that was perfect for dry fly fishing and greased leader presentations at various distances in lakes for surface feeding carp, and would be an ideal line for dry line presentations for steelhead, salmon and trout. For Skagit lines, I used a 240, 250 and 275 grain heads, both intermediate and floating heads, and found the 250 grain to be a sweet spot for me for the floating and the 240 to be better in the intermediate sizes, but I like a lighter Skagit head so the 270 wasn’t my favorite, but might be a good choice if you like a little heavier Skagit head as I know many "Americanos" do. But the 240-250 handled a T-8 Mow Tip well and flies up to around 3 inches without much issue into a 25-30 mph wind.
Keep in mind these are just first thoughts after a few weeks playing with the rod, but this is such a sweet stick that just makes me smile when casting it that I feel very confident in sharing my thoughts on it, and confident in knowing that if you like the glassy fun of life, this beautiful stick will make you smile as well every time you cast it. I definitely prefer the lighter Scandi style lines on it, not because it doesn’t handle the other style well, but because it is just so much freaking fun using this rod with touch and go casts and long leaders and light flies. It just feels right. Much like a burrito and a cold beer with a lime. In harmony, balanced, as all things should be. If you like fun, get this thing, I’m not sure there is a more fun rod out there."
Find Dagur all over the internet with his website, Guidesplained on Substack, and on Instagram.
