I'd vote for the combo without line and suggest spending the rest of your budget on a good, quality line. The Prestige Plus reel is the same one I've got. I'm sure there are some good suggestions among us for what that might be. I'll further suggest that you buy a 4wt line for this 3wt rod. That made a huge difference in my casting ability with it and therefore my enjoyment in using it.

I agree with the suggestion to upline one line wt for a beginning setup. But, my vote would be to start with something more along the lines of a 5 wt rod rather than starting with a 3 wt.

While a 3 wt is one of my favorite rods to fish, I would not recommend starting with a 3 wt rod unless you know exactly where you plan to fish it. A 5 wt is a middle of the pack size that can be used to cover a wider range fishing conditions, because it will cast a wider range of fly sizes and it will be a little easier to cast in the wind than a 3 wt.

Of course, this is my personal preference and just like favorite rod brands, other folk's opinions will vary (a lot).

caribou, I think both of those included lines. The first link seems to be stale though. 2nd link is probably the new one because I noticed it lists their new 8' 4wt available in that combo where it didn't before. That's another middle of the road choice because I agree I wouldn't start out with a 3wt for the reasons Rex said. But the 5wt is more versatile even than the 4wt.

So I've got a lot of mostly good rods (some too expensive) and I just now grabbed that 3Forks 8' 4wt for pond and light bass fishing. I like it even better than 3wt. So the 3Forks is a great starter but even after 30years of this, I still bought one. Best deal in fly fishing.

I have a 3 forks and it works just fine. One of my buddies that has expensive fly rods said that it is a nice combo for the price. On a recent trip to Broken Bow I caught just as many trout on my $80 rod/reel combo as he did on his $800 rod/reel combo.

Thanks for all the input guys.

i jusy got a fly rod last year an cant get it to cast out very far any one close to euless that might could show me im wanting to catch perch an stuff