Potentially lost in the shuffle among many new, mid-priced offerings from household-name rod makers is Douglas Outdoors’ DXF rod lineup. Based out of upstate New York, near the east coast’s Salmon River, Douglas Outdoors is a small rod company which just happens to be making some of the best rods I’ve fished during the better part of the last decade which I've spent, amongst other things, reviewing fishing gear (and mostly fly rods, at that) for a living.

Chances are, watching guide Santos Madero work a streamer is like nothing you've seen before. Instead of the long casts, big mends and extended swings or retrieves most anglers associate with streamer fishing, Madero works short. Really short; with stout, heavy flies intended to get to the bottom fast and move water.