Hello,

Thanks to everyone for your advice. I bought a Okuma Sierra reel last
night for $34 which seemed to be a pretty good deal.

The rod I purchased is a Quarrow Big Horn- I've never heard of the
brand and couldn't find much info on them but it seems like a good deal
for $45 including travel case. does anyone have any experience with
this brand of rod?

Now, I have to wait until payday to get line,leader,tippet,flies, etc.
Then I call in sick and go fishing for a few days.

From what I've heard It looks like I'll go with DT line.

Now I'm looking at getting equipped for steelhead, but I think I'll
build my rod eventually, and continue using good old spinning/bait
casting until then. I teach at an outdoor education center and for a
class project we had a custom rod builder come in for 2 hours a day for
a week and 15 kids got to build their own 5ft spinning rods. A great
experience for the kids and me.
You guys have been very helpful-very interesting following the
thread-I'm going to try and stump some of my m-athlete friends w/ the
rope around the earth question.