I have often come across Echo rods on my purchasing journies but never thought of buying one. With so many good brands, why not stick with the ones you have had success with. I decided to buy a Lift as a backup to my daily driver for the July small creek trip this summer. I snapped my good ol' rod day 3. Enter Echo Lift.What a rod! It's light, strong (handled a 14 inch brown) and casts like butter. If my rod had not broken, I probably would not know how excellent this rod casts. I love it. So much so, that I believe the Lift is my new small stream go-to rod. 26 fish later, and I'm still looking for its flaw. I would recommend this rod to people who are wondering, as I did, what Echo has to offer. I will now be looking hard at their other offerings.This rod might surprise you. It really does cast great. It's has become one of my favorites. You can't go wrong for the money.Bought 9' 5 weight for my son who hasn't been fly fishing long. He's fished with my orvis and St croix rods and he prefers the echo lift over my other rods. I have to say after casting it a few times now, I wouldn't mind having one myself, I could always use another 4 weight. Love the beautiful blue blank too.This is my 2nd Echo fly rod, my 4 weight, is perfect, the 5 weight, the line up dots are not correct. Not super major, but if there going to be on there, they should be correctOriginally ordered a 9' 7wt. Got sent a 9' 8wt. Didn't figure it out for months. 8 wt did great with salmon and steelhead. Only complaint on the 8 wt is that one set of alignment dots were off.Ordered another 9' 7wt. Actually got a 7wt this time. Alignment dots were way off and top rod section had a slight bend in it. Returned it for another 9' 7wt. Alignment dots were better but still off and top rod section had a slight bend again.The rods are great if you get a good one. Quality control seems to be terrible. I really wanted a second Echo Lift, but I don't have the time to keep ordering and returning until I get a good one. And I definitely don't want to spend time trying to align the rod sections by eye before getting on the river. I'll regrettably look for another rod.Love it! Comes with a hard case and soft bag to go inside.made in chinaMy rod came missing the section below the tip. And came with two sections for the piece above the handle.