Rod Buying Advice?

[Okemorse]

Hello all!
So I am in the market for a new fly rod. Though I have an idea of afew brands etc that interest me I dont want to jump right in and buy if theres a better rod or deal out there I am overlooking (im pretty new to the whole scene). Id like a 7-7.5 foot 3 weight graphite rod...4 pieces. The plan is to do alot of backpacking, bushwhacking, crawling around etc....so I dont really want to spend 500+ dollars as im sure it wont be long before ive scratched it up thoroughly. Can you guys recommend what you'd buy if you were in the market for the same thing? Say 100-300$ for the rod. Ive been looking at the TFO finesse series and afew others. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks so much

[jimwright]

I own and very much like my Echo Carbon four piece 7'6" 3 weight. Though Echo rates it I believe medium fast, I find it decidedly moderate and full flexing and with a 6x tippett I can put a lot of pressure on small 12" or so largemouths (all I've caught so far) because the rods soft flex protects the light tippett so well. With Rio Gold wf3f line it loads well for short accurate casts and roll casts very well. With an Orvis Battenkill 1 disk drag I got on sale for $80.00, I have $330.00 total in the outfit before leaders and am very satisfied. Also funny you should mention T.F.O.s finesse series because I just bought an 8'9" four weight for my wife to begin fishing with (as long as someone other than me teaches her how per her insistence) and I liked it very much as well the little that I cast it. It has a similar feel to the Echo Carbon but only comes with a rod sock while the Echo comes with a sock and very nice zippered nylon tube.

[Mark]

I can add a +1 for TFO rods, I thoroughly enjoyed the one I owned. I'll own another eventually.

[51BC]

I own and fish a TFO 3wt 7'6'' finesse. It's a nice rod rod and I enjoy fishing it. It's not my favourite rod, but it does see a lot of action in places I perfer not to take my bamboo or my Winston.