Two Handed Surf Rod

[bunkerfly]

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been looking in to buying a two-handed rod to fish the Mid-Atlantic and New England surf. I’ve never cast a two-hander before and am trying to clear up some of the conflicting details I’m finding on-line. Also, since I live in Los Angeles now and will only be getting to the East Coast twice this season (mid-September and mid-October) I can’t justify spending big bucks on what will be, at least for now, an experiment. While the CND and New Loomis two handed surf rods look real sweet, I’d like to keep my initial purchase under $400. I say “initial” because, if I get in to chucking feathers with a two hander I’m sure I’ll buy at least one other and probably more.

I’ve been trying to get more info about the TFO 12’ 12 wt and the Echo2 Scandi 12’6” 9 wt. From what I can gather, both rods cast well with similar grain weights and are under $350 each. A guy named Jay at Echo has been really helpful about their rods but freely admits that he doesn’t have much, if any, experience fishing for stripers and blues. So far, my email to the folks at Temple Fork hasn’t been returned.

So, what I’m looking for is a recommendation or any sort of opinion about which of these two rods will be better for my purposes. I’m planning on using the rod to fish open beaches, jetties, etc and hope to be able to chuck big-ass flies. I understand that the TFO has been purpose-built for this and the Echo hasn’t, but owning the Echo will give me more flexibility down the road – say if I want to head to the Northwest for steelhead at some point.

Any comments or suggestions on these rods? Any other sticks you might suggest?

[gseries69]

I've been researching two handers for a while as well. I haven't bought one yet because it is defintiely confusing on which is the best to start with. What I've learned is that you want to get either an overhead or cross over rod. You don't want a true spey rod. You want a rod with quick recovery characterisitcs for the shooting heads you'll most likely be using. For rock and jetty fishing a shorter rod makes landing fish easier. The rocks can be VERY dangerous. For open beaches a longer rod has the advantage of being able to throw more line and keep the line above the surf. Cross over rods are rods that will overhead cast and also spey cast. The T&T rods in the 1308, 1307 and 1208 are supposedly good cross over rods, but they are a lot more then $400. Bob Meiser is a rod builder in your neck of the woods that might be someone you could talk to. He loves to talk about rods and is a well respected builder.

[masssalt]

bunkerfly, I developed the TFO 1212 Surf Launcher rod, and TFO normally forward inquiries like yours to me, but it must have gotten overlooked somehow, because I never received it. My apologies for that, but please feel free to correspond directly with me at: jhorton(at)haydenreels.com

I have no experience with the Echo rods. Being a Scandi rod, it should be fine for overhead casting, but as a spey rod, it is likely to be quite fast which generally would mean that it may be great with Scandi lines and casting stye, but more difficult to cast with more traditional spey lines and styles.

I live on Cape Cod, ( Striper surf central,) and have been fishing two-handers exclusively from the beach for years now. I can assure you that there are no fish which you can catch on the more expensive rods, which can't be caught with the TFO 1212.

Jay Horton
Advisory Staff TFO

[bobfishgerald]

Jay, On the subject of two handed TFO rods, do you know anything about the attachment that TFO makes to turn the 8 wt. TRCx one hander into a two handed overhead casting fly rod. I think this looks like a very good cost effective solution but I am not sure exactly how it works or how it casts.

[jake61198]

Just to throw another option into the mix, I believe that St. Croix makes a Bob Popovics model specifically for fishing the surf.

[masssalt]

Jay, On the subject of two handed TFO rods, do you know anything about the attachment that TFO makes to turn the 8 wt. TRCx one hander into a two handed overhead casting fly rod. I think this looks like a very good cost effective solution but I am not sure exactly how it works or how it casts.

That conversion is another of my developments. It casts beautifully both one and two-handed. For two-handing, you need to overline it by a couple of line weights with standard WF one-handed fly lines, not spey lines. For estuary stripers, I use the conversion handles with the 7-weight TiCrX tips and 8 or 9-weight one-handed fly lines.

[bunkerfly]

jake61198, thanks for the reply. I’m aware of the Popovics rod but that is a single-handed design and I already have a single handed Sage RPL+ 10’ 10 wt that was designed for the same purpose. I’m looking for a two hander at this point.

Bunkerfly