I enjoy reading posts on fly fishing gear. Rods and reels are getting lighter, with cutting edge materials. Modern high tech equipment can get pricey.
I was researching a vintage TV fishing personality, Gadabout Gaddis. I found some youtube videos of him fly fishing on his TV show ("Fishing USA") from the late 1960's .
This video made me chuckle as his equipment would be poo-pooed today. Looks like he is using a pretty thick diameter fiberglass flyrod (white color, no less), and a Pflueger Medalist(?) reel (1494? 1495?). Surprise, surprise, he is catching fish on a "heavy, slow action" rod, and a "low tech" heavy reel. There May be a life lesson in there someplace. His gear was likely "cutting edge" back in 1969, but it just goes to show "it's not the arrow, but the archer."
He is fishing the Kennebec River, above the Wyman dam (north of Bingham /Solon /Moscow, Maine) called "Wyman Lake.". It's about an hour north of me. Note the pulp wood floating, as part of the paper mill log drives (log drives ended a couple years after this filming to clean up the rivers.).
I was researching Gadabout Gaddis, as I bought his 14 foot aluminum jon boat 20 years ago, from a family who took care of him in his later years in Solon, ME. It is a very heavy duty "DuraTech" brand jon boat. It still is fishing the Kennebec River today.
I got a kick out of the "old school" equipment (by today's standards), he was using-with success. Grab you parent's or grandparent's flyrod and reel, dust them off and go catch some fish.