I ever dreamed about a telescopic short ultralight fly rod. easy to transport, few seconds to close, few seconds to open. And the fly can remain there, ready to use.
But I never found an ultralight telescopic fly rod and those in commerce (in Italy), too long and too heavy for me, cost a bang.
Then I decided to build one and the result is not bad!
I bought on ebay a chinese telescopic travel rod, about 12 euro shipped (I will put below in another post the address: if you don't find it it means that admins deleted it. Ask me in private message if you want the link).
It is a 12 feet telescopic rod, closed it's 40 centimeters; I used only the last 5 pieces, to obtain a 6,6" rod. If you want a little longer one you can use the last 6 pieces (231 cm, 31,05 grams).
For the last 5 that I used these are the measures:
197 centimeters (cm), 22,92 grams, butt 0,92 cm, tip 0,092 cm, ern #3, AA about 70.
The ern seems too high, but in real this rod works perfect for a #2 line: in fact this is not a conventional progressive rod, being telescopic it is more and more rigid to the butt and in addition the tip is very thin compared to traditional fly rods.
A pic explain it better.
As you can see the tip is very flexible and the other parts are more and more rigid: it can be considered a fast rod who works perfectly with a #2. I tried it with my DT-2-F Ultra 2 Mastery and it's easy to cast until 40 feet of line out + 8/10 feet of leader. But until 30" it's really pleasant and easy to cast. It's fast then if you are accustomed to slow / moderate rods you need 15/30 minutes to understand the perfect timing. But if I found it I think that everybody can.
I built it with a little smaller rings compared to usual rings, but they work pretty well. The tip top is a little smaller that usual then you need reduce the knots between the leader and the line or use cast connectors or other tricks, if you use leaders longer that 6/7 feet.
Only the first ring is sliding and mounted on a small piece of rod.
The hook retainer is self made, like the handle and the reel seat and I used 2 couples of O-rings for the reel.
The result is a 48 grams rod, about 46 cm who stay in a backpack, easy to transport and easy to use, in particular in small rivers. And very cheap.
The cons for me is that with the fish (I captured a couple of 30 cm trouts when I tried it) is not so "pleasant" like a more progressive rod: in last times I tend to use more and more light rods and more and more light lines and since is very difficult that I catch fishes more that 35/40 cm I love feel them...I'm a little addicted to ultra-ultra light rods, to how I "feel" the fish. But for a "normal" use I think it's not a "con".