I really wish that I hadn't sold my AYA No.2 sidelock but with respect to fishing, in the relentless drive to find the perfect rod over the few years I have bought and sold:

10' #7 Sage XP
10' #6 Sage XP
9' 6" #7 Sage SP
9' #4 St. Croix Avid
9' #4 TFO
9' #5 Sage VPS
9' #7 Bloke XL50
10' #7 Orvis Western
13' 9" Hardy De Luxe
14' #9 SB Diamondback
15' B&W Norway

I wish I hadn't sold most of them but I discovered that a rod I bought 20 years ago is every bit as good as most of the #7s listed now that I've given up competition fishing.

These days I am happy with what I've got and my current fly rods are:

7' 6" #3 Kunnan
8' #4 T&T
8' 6" #5 Snowbee
9' #5 T&T
9' #7 Caudle & Rivaz
10' #4 Snowbee
10' #5 Bloke XL50
10' #6 Fulling Mill
10' #7 Bloke XL50
10' #8 Caudle & Rivaz
11' 3" Sage RPL
13' 6" #9 Bloke
15' #10 Shakespeare Oracle

All of these do their respective jobs well enough and I have decided to stop being a tackle tart. Unless..............................

__________________
“There is no more lovely country than Monmouthshire in early spring. Nowhere do the larks sing quite so passionately, as if somehow inspired by the Welsh themselves. There is a blackbird on every thorn and a cock chaffinch, a twink as they call him there, on every bush...... It moved me profoundly. I had been spared to see another spring, and I thank God for it.”

Oliver Kite
“A Spring Day on the Usk”
A Fisherman’s Diary

Hi. It seems we have all done similar things,even sold a couple of Brownings myself,etc,even though I have, a Loomis,a Powell,a Custom SAGE,A Custom Talon,2 Old Shakespeare 6 pce,a Silstar, I mostly use an old Shakespeare Graphite 8'6 rod Iv'e had for over 25 yrs & wouldn't know how many fish It's caught.
We all thought we were doing the right thing at the time,only time tells.

This is in reverse, but I once heard about an old fella in the Derby area who used to build split cane rods for a hobby. He sold them to people for a tenner per foot. A mate of mine bought one off him. It was perfect - real family heirloom stuff. It had one butt section and two tips, so it could be used with a 4 or 5 weight line.

I was a student at the time and I couldn't justify the 70 odd quid it would have cost me for a little brook rod. Shortly after, the chap's health started to fail and he stopped making them. He's probably no longer with us.

Whenever I see a cane rod I curse myself for not finding the 70 off quid I would've needed to buy one.