I had been looking for a special fly rod for the last year.

My medical adventure of late 2016 through early 2017 provided me with a good amount of time to think about what’s important in life. I came to the conclusion, as Thoreau wrote in Walden and Other Writings, that it had been far too easy for me over the years to be “frittered away by detail”, and I needed to “simplify, simplify.”

In fly fishing, I decided I wanted to focus more on the essentials of the fish, the flies, and the contexts of time and place – rather than the too familiar path of being gear-compulsive.

For those who don’t fly fish (or any other gear-driven preoccupation – such as golf), it’s ridiculously easy to be caught up in the release of new gear. Fly rods in particular can drive an almost obsessive longing for the magic rod that can turn a poor casting stroke into perfection, or the rod that allows the fly fisher to target species from just beyond the rod tip to the next county in a howling gale. And I had been susceptible to that in the past.

To be fair the latest generations of fly rods are spectacular. Whether from Loomis, Orvis, Sage, Scott, Winston, and others – they are lighter with great tapers and with better materials and manufacturing than was possible in previous generations. I’ve cast many of them and they are all superb.

But I wanted a special rod – one that was not a custom rod but that had custom-rod attributes and was made by a small company of craftsman.

To that end, I started seriously looking at Thomas and Thomas (T&T) rods. I had been reading about them for several years and they seemed to fit the bill.

I emailed Dave McCoy, owner of Emerald Water Anglers (EWA), and one of T&T’s new ambassadors, who said the new Avantt was a better choice as a beach rod rather than the saltwater-specific Exocett. That sounded great to me as the Avantt would also work on the windy rivers of southwest Montana when we go to visit my son and his family in Bozeman.

I made the trip up to EWA in West Seattle to cast the nine foot six weight with the full-wells grip and the fighting butt.

I’ll briefly mention that this is one great-looking rod with superior cork, a matte blue finish, and some of the most impressive guide-wrap work I’ve seen – some rod makers use too much epoxy on the guide wraps; there was none of that on the Avantt. The craftsmanship is impeccable.

Dave brought three lines out for me to cast: an Airflo beach line (seven weight), an Airflo Xceed (six-weight), and a standard six-weight line. The alley behind the shop was good place to cast, except for a passerby who didn’t appreciate the backcast whipping out in front of him. Some people have no sense of humor.

After rigging up the rod, I observed how light in felt in hand and I noticed how the shape of the cork full-wells grip fit naturally into my hand.

I started casting with the seven-weight and worked my way down to the standard six-weight line.

The seven-weight line felt great. I started with less than ten feet of line and began working the line out. As the length of line increased, I began to see this was definitely fast-action rod that had a firm tip. But I was surprised how easy it was to cast and how light the swing-weight felt.

Moving then to the Xceed and finally to the true to weight line, as expected the response was a bit quicker. But the more I cast it with each line, the more I found myself thinking this was a very versatile rod that could handle any number of lines. Dave asked me which of the lines I preferred with the Avantt. and I had to think as each one worked well, but if I had to choose one it would be the Xceed.

Also it seemed to me that the more I cast it the more I was able to stop focusing about the rod and was just focused on the line and cast. Typically, I can feel a fast-action rod in my elbow and shoulder when first casting it. There was none of that with the Avantt.

I was liking this rod a lot.