Thomas & Thomas Zone fly rod

I've written about the comeback of T&T rods before, but I'll summarize here. At one time Thomas & Thomas was one of the industry leaders. Their lineup ranged from the budget-friendly Emerger series to the powerful saltwater Horizon series, with several excellent trout series. A couple of ownership changes resulted in decline in sales and new products. In 2014, coffee shop entrepeneur Neville Ormand - and fanatical fly angler - bought T&T and brought back founder and master rod designer Tom Dorsey to help design the finest American-made fly rods using new resin and taper technology.

Since their comeback, industry praise has been universal. Their Exocett and Avantt series are two of the best rods made today. All of their offerings have been in the premium category - until now.

With the new Zone series, T&T hopes to reach out to a greater audience. These rods fall in our mid-priced category, from $495 in trout models to $525 in the saltwater models, and will compete against popular rods in that range such as the Orvis Recon and Sage Motive.

The blank is a gray finish and uses the same proprietary StratoTherm resin found in their Exocett and Avantt series. Reel seats and guide wraps are a stunning blue color. The freshwater models have single foot guides, while the saltwater versions use stainless snake guides.

Test casting the Zone rods, I felt the saltwater models were better than the freshwater models, when compared to their competition. The Zone 8-eight reminded me a lot of the old Horizon, except a tad lighter in weight. While not as slim in profile as the TFO Axiom II or Sage Foundation, that's not a bad thing. Having a slightly beefer butt section means this rod should have some good lifting power. Our "bend test" seemed to confirm that. Of the nearly two dozen mid-priced saltwater rods we tested, it was definitely in the top three!