The Fly Rod Beauty Factor: Does it Matter?
by Kirk Deeter 
G.Loomis recently announced that it would be offering its NRX rod series in a slick new green finish, which I find interesting, because that tells me that aesthetics might be more important in marketing fly rods than I had assumed. After all, the original NRX with its robin-egg-blue wraps is hands down, without question, one of the hottest-handling, best-casting, and all-around fishable fly rods ever made. It’s just that a lot of folks think it’s ugly. Yeah, I’ll concede that the blue on the rod is a funky color, but I don’t think they’re ugly rods. Instead, I’d call them “aesthetically awkward,” in more of a white socks and black shoes, or striped shirt and plaid necktie kind of way.
To be honest, when it comes to looks, different is often good. For example, when an angler is holding that big world record fish, and the rod with the odd blue wraps is in the photograph, everybody knows the fish was caught on an NRX. Now, green, we’ll wonder, “Is it a Sage TCX or an NRX? Or is it a Winston?”
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