A man cannot have too many fly rods.
Bingo! Everybody has their own idea about what works best for them, and they're all correct. I would beg/borrow/steal as many different rods to try out as a means of narrowing down what will work for you in a given situation- then go to the fly shop and open your wallet.
Personally, on a tight little stream I like a short fast rod for zinging a fly into small target that likely has a tree limb two feet off the water. A medium action rod is what I reach for if "normal" casting is the order of the day.
I taught myself to cast 30 years ago with an old Orvis split cane 5 foot for a 5 weight called the "Mighty Mite". (I swapped a guy a Ruger single action for it, based on a vague notion that I would like to try fly fishing.) Little did I know how much of a specialized rod that was and how much I was handicapping my newbie self with it. But I persisted, and to this day I still prefer short-ish rods. But my-o-my how I could zing dry flies into coffee cup-sized pockets under alder branches- after about 10,000 hours of frustrating practice.
