Redington Butter Stick 370-3 7 foot 3weight fiberglass fly rod
As many of y'all know, I'm in ultralight guy who searches for local waters to catch warm water sunfish, catfish, and white bass. So often many of my rod choices are shorter, graphite rods, and when I can find them glass, even better.

After exploring and trying new value price point rods, such as the TFO glass, the Echo�s and few more models on the expensive side, I've been very impressed with what I've seen with the Butter Sticks. A couple of years back, I got to play around with a 6-foot, 2 weight, and I was pleasantly surprised on how it performed. You�ll find that review on the site too.

Recently, the folks at Redington were kind enough to loan me a 7-foot, 3 weight Butter Stick to try out review this review went over a period of about a month and a half which gave me plenty of time to really try out the rod. During this time, I fished it with dries on stocker trout during the winter, white bass during the early spring run, and I took it up to Oklahoma for a local club outing.


This is rod is a winner. The experts at Redington/Sage designed a rod which has good tapers for glass. After sampling other makes, I have come to realize that is a difficult job in figuring out how a rod will perform based on a �general use for both �glass aficionados� as well as graphite converts. You can�t please everyone. All that said, I would call this rod a true moderate action, although Sage/Redington has this rod rated it as slow.


But let�s talk performance. This rod this has a smooth action with a little more power in the butt section. It can cast a WF3 line up to a WF4, but you make the choice on what kind of action you want to create. Do you prefer a slower relaxed stroke that flexes deeper or do you want to speed it up? In my hands, this rod felt really nice with WF3, throwing light flies without any difficulty. In fact I was able to throw some flies that tended to be on the more when resistant side.


To explain more fully, line mass or lack thereof, can be a tricky unless you can actually up-line to throw heavier flies. It�s a mass vs. gravity thing. Normally I would up-line to throw some medium-size poppers and smaller poppers, but this wasn�t really necessary.

Roll casting is my main cast in some of the areas I fish -- places with lots of low overhanging cover. This rod flexes to throw accurately and swiftly to targets. Usually carbon fiber lacking tip bounce shines better, but these rods taper tracks nicely. I found this rod could deliver casts into distance up to 40 to 45 feet.

A few years back I determined that my reviews are useful, but maybe it might be better to put rods in the hands of others. So I did it again. When I took it to the Oklahoma fly fishing club outing, I offered this Redington to several of my friends. They cast it they were amazed.

There a lot of folks in the glass world who like Echo for the price, some like high end Epic rods. Some feel that many of the newer glass rods that rise in price up to $600 and $700 are best. If you're lucky enough to be talented and want to build and Epic or Blue Halo for $200+ parts, then this might be affordable. However, most people don't want to go that direction. They want to factory built rod rod that they can just add water and go fish.


Universally speaking, my friends in Oklahoma thought this was a great rod. Everyone got an opportunity to cast it. Later that weekend, a friend tried it on the lake and was very impressed. He caught a small bass on it and just laughed.


So, if you have an opportunity to go try with these rods at a retail location, Bass Pro, Cabela�s, or local fly shop. Or order one online -- you won't be disappointed. Yes, there are other choices out there, but I think this 7-foot Butter Stick one of the best for this price point and one I give thumbs up. I look forward to trying the 4WT version.
http://www.redington.com/fly-fishing-rods/butter-stick/

Les, how did the action of this rod compare to the rods that you had cast previously? The last time I cast a Butterstick was just over a year ago and to call that rod slow was to be generous. Once you adjusted to it, I could see where it could be a fun rod to fish with. I think that rod was a 5 wt. I think I would like that rod in a 3 wt better.

I'm just curious if they may changed the action some in this generation of the rod?

Hi Rex,



No they really didn't change the action of the rod. When I wrote this review I wrote it for a glass audience I decided to share it with this site, and I forgot that my usual glass audience would consider this Rod to be more of a moderate action. Here, his audience would consider to be slow. So having said that maybe you would have underlined this Rod to give it a crisper action

Your thoughts?

Good point Les, the audience makes a difference. When I cast the rod, it was the opposite extreme. We were casting and comparing different rods and most of them made the TFO Axiom seem like a moderate action. MacCauly Lord slipped in the Butter Stick and it was definitely an outlier.

I think you are right, that it should be possible to up or down line the rod to match personal preference.

Also, you did a good job with the review write up.

Thanks rex.

If you compare this 7 foot 3 WT Butter Stick to the equivalent 3/4 TFO 7 foot glass it would be much slower than the TFO product. As a rule when graphite caster asks me about glass rods they should consider if they are considering taking the plunge, I will throw in the TFO as a good entry point. That is, I feel that the TFO rod is unusually quick for glass and better suited for someone with a faster casting stroke. And in fairness, I OWN a couple of TFO glass rods the 6'9" 5/6 ( which I like better with WF7 in my kayak) and the seven foot 3/4 which I use on local creeks.

If you want slow, noodley glass it's out there and it takes practice to get the rhythm. I had a Dwight Lyons 6 foot 2 weight which fell into this category. These are small creek rods best suited for roll casting or for bow-n-arrow casts and high stick dapping. The Butter stick does not fall into this category.

For me cane, glass, and graphite work equally for different occasions and uses.

Les

I agree, the TFO glass rods tend to be on faster end of the scale for glass rods.


Personal opinion is that the glass rods shine when there's a fish on the end of the line. They are fun to fish!