Orvis Helios 11' 5 weight switch

[Darthmonkey]

So I purchased a switch rod from Orvis after receiving a couple of gift cards that could get me a new stick, so I purchased the Helios Switch five weight and the Beulah Elixir 5/6 295 grain line. Been fishing it hard for the last week, and this is my review of said rod and line combination.
The rod is well constructed, as you'd expect from Orvis. The recoil snake guides and titanium stripper guides are pretty sweet, as well as the olive finish of the blank. The cork is good, but not great, oh well. The reel seat is a pretty neat carbon fiber weave with skeletonized hardware all to reduce weight, and it works. The thing is light in hand, as well as the rod tube. The rod tube is carbon fiber with gold lettering and cap with a rubber O ring, the tube is narrow and the rod and rod sock fit a little snug. Luckily the rod sock has a pull tab to get the rod out and the rod sock itsself has a velcro closure which is a nice touch.
The line is a 295 grain Scandi head with an integrated running line. The head is bright yellow and the running line is olive drab, which I think is a bit odd, I'd reverse the coloration but hey thats me. Welded loop at the tip so you can loop some tips or poly leaders to the front, standard stuff really.
On to the good stuff; the rod is nice, smoothly transfers load from tip to but and has loads of power. 90' casts with no problems and is really a versatile rod to cast single handedly, or with spey style casts. The rod feels a little on the dull side swinging streamers, I don't know if it is line affiliated or a rod issue, but either way I feel like I had missed a few strikes. But the rod does feel nice with a fish on the line and has enough power to turn some serious fish. The line and rod combination works well, and I doubt I'll be cutting any tips for this combo and just stick with poly leaders. I would like to try a skagit compact line, probably gonna get a Tonic line from Beulah and a spare spool for the Bauer reel and see if I can sling some larger streamers as the combination did have some trouble with heavier water logged rabbit strip flies. All in all the rod gets an 8/10 rating because the other downside to this rod is the price. At $850 US dollars I'd expect a little more given the options on the market currently available.

[flyfishergirl]

Thanks for the honest review Darth, appreciate it. Gotta agree with you on the cheap cork thing...what up with that? Seems like most rods ('cept Sage, no diss on anyone else specifically) have bad cork these days.

Hmmmm...

[Darthmonkey]

I tend to agree with you on the bad cork thing, I've been hearing about it more and more. I think it has something to do with the volume of rods being made now. Rod makers can't be so picky anymore because there are so many sticks in demand nowadays that small sacrifices need to be made so that the shops can have rods in hand to sell to customers. Also having worked for an Orvis dealer, Orvis cork has always been a step below others like Sage, and Winston.
Getting back into the two handed rod game is taking time, but I am getting there :p

[flyfishergirl]

I so totally agree. Too much demand, not enough caring. However there are still a few manufacturers that produce top notch products (often with a top notch price tag) that keep kicking out the good, but a lot of the lower end priced products are just that...lower end, in all items, not just cork.

Cork, however - as we all know, is very important. Had an animal eat a bunch of the cork off of one of my cheapo personal trout rods last summer. Before then it really wasn't so important that the cork was crappy, but after that it really made a diff. Now, because it was 'roughed' up, it just crumbles and falls off, flakes away and disappears. Lovely....

Food for thought.

The old school names are the ones i will keep going to for many reasons. The companies survive in this market for a reason. Period.

I think... Feedback anyone?