I've never fished a rod that short. I like fishing bamboo and you often see some short bamboo rods, but 5' seems a little extreme to me. I've fished a 6'6" foot rod that fine, but the stream was only 15ft across and I was dry fly fishing. I really prefer a 7' rod for all-around small stream fishing. I had a beauty that I reget selling. It was pretty fast, even for cane, and could easily cast weighted nymphs and streamers if the dry fly wasn't working. My normal go to dry fly rod is 7.5', if I need more rod, I go to the 8.6' Sage.
