A good flyfishing school or a day on the water with a good guide would likely give better results than an upgrade to your rod setup.
I have been fly fishing for 3 years or so now, but still consider myself a bit of a newbie. If I had an extra $600 to spend I would love to take this advice and hire a guide for a day. I could learn so much from a good guide! Not only about reading water and fly fishing techniques, but I could also pick up some information on the big trout streams around here that I'm planning to explore more this Spring.
I can't imagine spending $600 on a rod. Especially a couple years ago when I was first starting out. I usually buy Cabela's brand rods, and they always seem to cast just fine for me. Cabela's brand reels too.
I just picked up 2 reels from them for $25 each, actually. I've always felt that expensive reels (for trout, anyway) are more about the aesthetics than about performance. Not like trout are going to be ripping a hundred yards of backing off your reel or something.
I *would* love to get a nicer fly line for a couple of my setups, though. I definitely believe that nicer fly lines float higher and shoot easier than the really cheap ones. I'm just too cheap to buy anything more expensive than the Cabela's brand lines that sell for $30 or so. But the $20 lines I've bought in the past have been significantly worse as far as performance and longevity than the slightly more expensive ones. It just seems to me that in rods the more money you spend the less you actually get for your money. Diminishing returns, if you know what I mean. Not that I've ever even cast a $600 rod to begin with...
Ha ha anyway that's a long rambling way to say good luck deciding how to spend your money, but don't forget to at least think about all the other fly fishing stuff you can spend it on other than a rod and reel... Never even attempted to answer your actual question, did I? Lol.
