The Longer the Rod

     Spey rods.  Switch rods.  Both longer than long.  Eleven feet on the short end.  Fifteen plus on the long.  I want one.  And have no use for either that I can think of unless I get into shore fishing or wading.
     Yes, my name is Mark and I'm an obsessive-compulsive.  It might have been last year that I saw one of the rods in operation down on the Mississippi River.  The man was shore fishing for smallmouth bass and using an eleven foot switch rod.  The switch rod can be used either one or two handed.  He was two handing it and throwing a fly like a bullet thirty yards onto the river.  With no frickin' backcast!  He'd jumble his intended amount of line in the water immediately in front of him.  Then, in a kind of figure eight move with the rod fire the fly way the hell out there like magic.  I stood slack jawed and transfixed.  It was beauty pure and simple.
     At first I wrote it off as something I'd never do.  But it's simplicity and effectiveness held me in its grip for months.  A month ago I watched a few videos of the technique.  Even one with a Swedish dude who was truly ancient but still a line slinger of the first order.  Watching their methods struck a chord within my soul, like it was something I was meant to do.  A calling from on high.  One of the lower levels of on high but still up there.  And it was completely meaningless.  What a great combination.
     So I now check the web for spey and switch rods.  And am slowed, but not stopped as yet, by the steep entry price of the equipment.  Guess the manufacturers figure if you're dumb enough to want something like a fifteen foot plastic pole when a six foot spinning rod would do the job as well or better then you're dumb enough to fork out the price of admission.  So I'm still looking and thinking about it (and praying for deep pockets).
     Then there's my desire to own a six foot fly rod 'cause it makes even less sense.  The appeal of the useless goes deep within me.