After their high end NRX series rods took 'Best in Show' honors at last year's ICAST 2010, the folks at GLoomis had a tough act to follow up going into this year's convention. Not to worry, as GLoomis has taken two BIS honors home this year. Both the Best Fly Rod and Best Fishing Rod categories were snatched up by new GLoomis offerings.

Although Loomis' conventional GL2 series grabbed the Best Fishing Rod honors, the winner for Best Fly Rod -- the GLoomis Pro4x -- is the rod that will be of most interest to readers here. The Pro4x is based on last years wildly popular (and sometimes controversial) NRX series of fly rods, which also happens to be wildly expensive with most NRX rods breaking the $1000 mark. The Pro4x, on the other hand, is designed from the ground up to be an affordable rod that beginners, intermediates, or just those without the means to drop a grand on a fishing rod can have access to.

As mentioned, the Pro4x series is NRX-based. The entire series is 4-piece, with the bottom 3 sections comprised of GL3 material, with the tip section made of NRX material. According to Steff Rajeff of GLoomis, "We took a page from our NRX blank technology to develop a new series of fly rods that anglers of all casting skill levels will really enjoy fishing. Expert anglers will wonder how we packed this much performance into such an affordable rod, and they'll quickly notice the incredibly sound actions, all very forgiving and delightful to cast."

We're looking forward to getting our hands on the new Pro4x series ASAP. Although we like playing with thousand-dollar rods as much as the next guy, good gear that comes cheap is much more up our alley.

Learn more about the GLoomis Pro-4x Series.