Rod length in small creek fishing

The discussion about small-stream rods in a thread above brought to my
mind a closely related question I've been thinking about recently.

I have no first-hand experience on fishing bushy creeks, but a couple
of months ago I heard that there are some really interesting ones
nearby where I live. So I will most certainly be checking out some of
these places later this year. However, since I'm a novice in fishing
places like this, I was wondering what sort of a rod one should use. I
have a 2wt 8' rod myself, and I will naturally find out next summer if
that is of any use in these creeks. But since it will take a couple of
months before I am able to wet my line in these streams, and since I
am an impatient man, I thought it might be interesting to hear your
opinions about this type of fishing.

In my area the best weight of the rod is probably 2 or 3, but the
length of the rod is much more of a mystery to me. I often hear
fishermen talk about 6'-7' rods, but some suggest longer rods for
dapping flies over small bushes or long grass. I've noticed that Sage,
for example, does not even produce rods shorter than 8' in their
premium SLT series in weights 0-2. I could also imagine that a shorter
rod might be useful because it would not get tangled in bushes while
fishing or moving around (I think that the shortest ones I've noticed
in my catalogues so far is a 5'6" T&T rod).

It's impossible to determine an optimal small creek rod for all types
of terrain, vegetation etc., but I'd still like to hear your
experiences. What type of rods do you use in small creeks? In
particular, how long are the rods? How does the length of the rod
limit / affect the techniques you use?

--
Jarmo Hurri

Commercial email countermeasures included in header email
address. Remove all garbage from header email address when replying,
or just use .