This past spring, G.Loomis sent me their warm water series 6 weight fly rod to review for the site. Typically, once I get some new gear to review I will test that thing out as fast as possible so that if the gear is worth it, I want you guys to know about it so that you can pick it up and get to fish it.  I'll do a couple of trips on the water right away so that I get a good sense about the gear, to really decide if I think that it's worth your hard earned money.

This is not a normal review.

I have fished this rod all spring, summer, and fall. Right after I got this rod I fished and caught trout. The next few months, I fished lakes and fought and landed 10 pound pike along with some bowfin and a few black crappie thrown in. August came and so did the low water river levels and 3 pound smallmouth bass and 9 pound carp were on the bite. Every time I wanted to sit down and write this review a new opportunity would come up to challenge the shore stalker rod, and every time it handled the situation by bringing the fish to the net.

The Details

The rod is very fun to use and has some back bone when pitching a fly into the wind. I really found that I could place some good size flies right where I wanted them to land, but I am getting way ahead of myself. I have to start at the beginning and that means what was sent and my first impressions.....

The folks at G.Loomis sent me the Warm Water Shore Stalker Series 6wt rod, and an East Fork 5-6 fly reel (more about that reel in a separate review). The tube that comes with the rod is really nice and unlike some others, does not look or feel cheap. Inside the tube the four piece rod is packed in a velvet sleeve or sock. The rod components are nice and the raps of the guides are nice and clean. The pieces are matched and fit together very well. The rod is a really quality build.

The first test of the rod was fishing a small lake/pond in south east Michigan for large brood stock trout that the DNR no longer wanted to use. Now these trout are pretty beat up but some look like the size of small salmon! And that makes them fun to catch and the shore stalker punched out a weighted wooly bugger quite well even with a strong head wind. The rod and reel was great at handling these nice large trout.

The weather finally warmed up and it was time to truly test the rod on the fish it was designed to fight and land. I caught some nice black crappie and a really nice 10lb pike that fought and gave the rod a really good workout!

At that point, I was sold on this rod, and I was all ready to sit down and get this review done.  But, as it happened, some lovely opportunities to get some more time on the water popped up.  One of these was a trip to the Shiawassee river to fish for smallmouth, and the rod easily handled a big three pounder. The rod excels at getting a large fly out with the bare minimum amount of false casting.

This rod was great on the Grand River as well, casting for and landing 10lb carp. I really could not find a situation or a species of fish I could not trust this rod to handle. Now a great rod needs to be matched up with a great reel and I had this rod matched with an East Fork reel that is a middle line reel that was itself impressive, the rod being 8 feet 6 inches long provides flexibility with exceptional backbone.

Ok, if we are not being picky then we are not doing our job. The one issue I had with this rod would have to be the warranty.  It is just a “defects and workmanship” warranty. That means if you break it, you send it in and they give you an estimate to repair it. When you spend $325.00USD you have really made an investment of repair. Now we understand that Orvis and Sage let the genie out of the box with their unconditional warranty. That means the dog bites it, you sit on it, whatever, and those companies will replace it free... ok, well almost free. G.Loomis really could do the same as they are owned by Shimano, one of the largest tackle manufactures in the world.

Other than that picky little detail, this rod is a real winner.  From how well it's built, to how nice it will power a big fly though the air, you really can't go wrong with this rod. We used this rod all spring and summer and it performed great, bringing in all kinds of warm water fish to the net time after time, from black crappies to ten pound pike and carp.

What we liked:

Well built
Power cast for big flies

Middle of the road:

Warranty

What we did not like:

None