Anybody know of places where I can get a nice quality fly rod & reel combo? Preferably under $250 (If thats even possible). I went over to the Orvis near me and there was a nice 9' 6'' rod, reel, line, etc combo for $269 and a 25 year warranty. Are there possibly any better deals out there?

vweeks: Check out your local Bass Pro shop and Cabelas and Gander Mtn if any are near you as they all have starter kits for fly fishing. I got my first Rod and reel from K-mart years ago and it still works well but I must also admit I do have a few others from other places now.

All three of those places have decent starter packages. i still have my first fly rod nothing special but it got me started . it was a martin fly rod bought at like kmart .

I recently put together a nice starter rig for less than $150. The rod is from BPS, a White River Dogwood Canyon 9' 6 weight 2 piece rod; price $54. A Daiwa Regal Strike SF 706 reel; price $35. Reel is spooled with @ 100 yards of Trilene XL 10 pound mono backing and Lefty Kreh Signature Series WF-6-F floating fly line, the fly line is $39. Great rig for small investment. This rig is primarily to be used for sunfish and bass fishing.

i bought a nice pfluger kit from gander for 100 dollars. its work really well

Likewise. My first rod was a Pflueger Purist starter kit. The only thing I did to it was get better line to make casting easier. Caught alot of fish on that combo. It's long retired now hanging on my study wall.
Pflueger Medalist starter kit - $60
Courtland 444SL 6.5WFF line - $55

My first fly combo is a martin caddis creek reel, pre-spooled with all the fixins that I got at walmart on sale for $5 and an 8'6 6-wt BPS dogwood canyon rod which was $55. Good for losing flies in the backyard so far

This is not a combo but i picked up a scientific angler concept fly reel a walmart for 15 bucks. seems to work pretty well. I matched this up with my 20 dollar eagle claw featherlight 5 wt 7' rod I use for small streams.
Brian

Found a good starter kit at Gander Mountain here in NY picked up a trout kit for just over $100

Ok, those all seem like pretty good price ranges, however what should a beginning fly angler like myself look for in a quality, yet inexpensive fly fishing combo?

For $54, I don't see anything beating the BPS White River Dogwood Canyon rod for quality and cast ability.  I went with a 9 foot 7 weight rod, you can go one weight lower or higher with your fly line for the rods rating and still cast well. This weight rod will give you some lee way on line. All you need is a decent single action reel. Don't spend more than $40 here. Practice casting as much as possible. I highly recommend the Scientific Anglers DVD "Basic Fly Casting" by Doug Swisher. You can get it from BPS online catalog. This is an awesome instructional DVD.

Posted By vweeks on 14 Sep 2010 03:58 PM
Ok, those all seem like pretty good price ranges, however what should a beginning fly angler like myself look for in a quality, yet inexpensive fly fishing combo?

OK here it is down and dirty if your trout fishing a 5wt is great , if your going to go after Bass and Maybe Trout go with a 7wt  9ft rod this will handle most anything your going to catch (even Salmon) .  I've used my 7 wt rod for years to catch Salmon largest was a tad over 50lbs. Yes you can go a line wt up or down, my suggestion is don't go down it will mess up your casting, If you go up a wt to a 8wt line it will slow you down and make it easier for you to learn to cast if you've never done it before or are kind of new to it as it loads the rod faster and is more forgiving also use a wt forward line it loads easier also and cast's better, Hope this helps some  Lou

LL Bean is always a good place to start; good quality merchandise, excellent return policy, and fair & honest pricing.  I'm also partial to Cortland products.