I’m going to be straight with you about this rod, because I figure that’s more useful than another glowing gear review where everything is “buttery” and nothing has a flaw.
The Redington Vice is the most affordable rod in my quiver by a wide margin — which, given the rest of the lineup, tells you something about my spending habits. I didn’t buy it as a primary piece of gear. I bought it to play around with streamers, a style I’m still figuring out, and I didn’t want to drop premium money learning on the water. It does that job. It’s not the best rod for the job, and I know it. But here’s what it actually does out there, and why the price makes sense for where it fits.
The short answer
The Redington Vice 9’6” 7wt ($279.99, lifetime warranty) is a fast, budget streamer rod that comes alive at 40-45 feet — great for bank shots to far-side October browns on a big Colorado river, but too stiff to load at 30 feet and heavy enough to fatigue your arm by mid-afternoon. It’s not the best streamer rod, but it’s cheap enough to learn on and good enough that the learning is real.
Buy the honest cheap option, fish it hard, and let your own complaints write the spec sheet for the upgrade.
What It Gets Right
The Vice is fast. It recovers quickly, throws tight loops when you load it correctly, and handles a 5-inch articulated streamer without complaining. At $279.99 with a lifetime warranty, that’s a lot of rod for October.
The key word in that last sentence: at distance. The Vice comes alive at 40-45 feet. Bank shots on a big river, throwing streamers tight to the far bank where the October browns are holding — that’s where it earns its keep. The loops are accurate, the power is there, and the streamer lands where I pointed it.
What It Gets Wrong
Don’t try to fish it at 30 feet. The rod is too stiff to load properly at close range and it feels clunky and heavy in your hand. That’s not a defect — that’s how it’s designed. It’s built for distance work and it makes no apologies for it. But if your streamer game involves swinging flies through close pockets or fishing tight to structure at short range, this isn’t the rod.
It’s also heavy. Not unmanageably heavy, but after a few hours of throwing weighted flies and articulated patterns, you feel it. My arm starts filing complaints by mid-afternoon in a way it doesn’t with lighter, better-built 7-weights. That’s the honest tradeoff for the price.
The Value Argument
The money I didn’t spend on a premium streamer rod went into a better fly line. On a 7wt, the line makes an enormous difference — how the streamer turns over, how the loop punches into wind, how much energy transfers to the fly. A premium line on the Vice outfishes a mediocre line on a $900 rod.
The lifetime warranty is real and worth noting. Redington stands behind it. For a rod in a category I’m still exploring, that warranty matters.
My take
My advice here is really advice about learning any new style of fishing: buy the honest cheap option, fish it hard, and let your own complaints write the spec sheet for the upgrade. The Vice taught me I want less weight in my hand and more life at short range — lessons worth more than the $279 they cost, and lessons I’d have missed if I’d started with an $800 rod and no opinions of my own. That’s the whole case: cheap enough to learn on, good enough that the learning is real. When I finally upgrade, I’ll know exactly what I’m paying for.
Where I Land
I’m thinking about upgrading. I don’t know to what yet — there are premium streamer rods I haven’t tried that I want to put my hands on, which is exactly the kind of thinking that got my quiver this expensive in the first place. The Vice will stay in the truck until I find something that handles the same work without the fatigue and the close-range limitations.
But for $279? It does October streamers on Colorado brown trout. If you’re not ready to spend $800 on a streamer rod for a style of fishing you’re still figuring out, this is how you get in the game without the buyer’s remorse.
Price: $279.99 | farbank.com
Part of my five-rod South Platte quiver.