what is bar fishing?

in that case.... i recommand tuff lines. or power pro.

The type of rod and reel you purchase will be dependent on where and what you plan to fish for

well said

Hi MGD, there sure is a difference rods accomodate for various water conditions, that's why most of us usually end up with 20 or 30 different rods.

Take a look at Stryker's line of drift rods:

http://www.fishingwithrod.com/stryker/castrods.html

The rods go from really small trout to big springs.

If you're looking for something that's at the entry level, Shimano Convergence or Fenwick HMX are pretty good bets. The price range is between 80 to 120. For reel, ABU 6500c3 is not bad and the price is reasonable.

If you are looking for rod and reel for the kids to use. I recommend to find something shorter, smaller, that can fit in the kids' hands.6 to 7 feet spinning rods are good to start with. For spinning reel, SHimano Sidestab is affordable and pretty reliable too. You might not be able to use this setup in the raging Fraser. But in the backwaters, you can use it for smaller fish species, or in lakes, etc.....

Hope this helps, I have to reread this again to see if it makes sense later on.

The above mentioned rods are not meant for casting the large weights. Chris, dynamite kid and the doctor can probably be able to suggest a few rods as they do quite a bit of barfishing. Most of my fishing only involve using small weights (3oz or less) as I only catch small fish.