Best Saltwater Fly Rods 2025
The subjective comparison everyone always wants to know: What is "the best" saltwater fly rod? I get asked this every day. No matter how I rank rods and evaluate them, people will question it, argue, complain, cry, moan, and so on. If you already have a favorite, I suggest you use it. This is for people who don't know what to buy and would like some guidance.
Don't want to read a lot of words? Short version:
#1: The Thomas & Thomas Sextant has always been one of our favorites and is a very easy recommendation to all levels of fly fishermen. Price, performance, warranty, customer service, all are 10/10 for the Thomas & Thomas Sextant
The Fantastic Next Generation of the Orvis Helios - This is the top pick in the "Premium" segment (20% more than a Thomas & Thomas Sextant but the performance combined with a fantastic warranty make this the nicest fly rod money can buy.
The Orvis RECON Rods are excellent at $598, easily defeating the Scott Wave and Sage Maverick which cost more and lag behind the RECON in performance. The Orvis RECON dominates the mid-range of fly rods for saltwater. We stock tons of 8wt and 9wt rods especially and they sell incredibly well. People love these!
The TFO Blitz - By Far the Best Reasonably Priced Fly Rods. The TFO Blitz really doesn't even have much competition at this price. There are rods twice the price that aren't this good. I'd even take one as a backup to my $1,000+ rods if I was going somewhere remote.
In a hurry? Don't want to read even more long reviews? Pick any of these top saltwater fly rods we suggested and you are good to go. You wanted the best? You got it. Want more details? Keep on reading.
First of all, what should you even be looking for in a saltwater fly rod, and how do we rank them and evaluate them when reviewing? We developed a 10-point concept covering 10 different aspects of any fly rod to give a number to some of these qualities (10 categories x 10 possible points each for 100 total points). It's still somewhat arbitrary but may help people in their research phase before buying a rod.
We are the original saltwater fly shop (and we hope the best as well). We make money when you buy anything from our shop here, but we don't let that influence our gear reviews. We only stock what we feel are the very best fly rods, reels, lines, and flies for our customers because we like them the most. If we don't have it here in our shop, there's probably a good reason. Sometimes some reasons we can't share in a blog post but they are based on our extensive knowledge of the brands in the fly fishing industry. We can't always directly say what's going on with other brands we choose not to carry so you will need to take our word for it. We want customers 100% happy with what they get, and without any gear failures on their next trip.
