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Hi namekagon and welcome to the forums.  I like your user name by the way, only a few months away to fish that river, but thats another story.

Do mean Kabekona River or the lake?  I know of the Kabekona name near the Bemidji area, but maybe your thinking of some other place, just wondering.  Anyways, I've never fished the river personally, but have been by it a few times.  My goal each year to try a totally different stream that I have never fished and was planning on heading to the Straight River this year.  I did the Dark River last year up in northern Minnesota and that was fun.

I can ask around the fly shop in town here and see if anyone has been to the Kabekona.  I believe it is also in a few books about fly fishing in Minnesota, I'll dig those up.  Otherwise someone else looking at this post my be able to chime in.

You will notice the difference for sure with the one foot difference, mainly is mending and casting distance.  But the river doesn't like you need a lot of distance anyways, but you will notice the difference having the shorter rod working in tight places.  I used to do a lot of fishing up the North Shore, the upper reaches of the streams and they can be very tight with lots of overhanging trees and the short rod mad a huge difference between say like a 9', which I'm used to fishing mostly with.  The main thing is the how the rod loads with a short amount of line out, different brands behave differently with short amount of line out.

The Dark River is a small stream, averaging about 10' across in the areas I fished.  I fished early in the spring when the bugs weren't out and there was less brush.  From just standing on the river, you wonder how such a trout stream exists in the Range area, it just looks like a classic trout stream, small deep runs with lots of wood debris piled up in the deeper bends.  I did manage a few smallish trout, but did see a few bigger fish move towards my fly, but no takers.  If some1 was do dedicate some time to this river, one could do very good, otherwise it's a nice river to fly fish if someone was up that way and wanting to try some fly fishing in the lesser known trout streams in Minnesota.  I used subsurface flies like the prince, caddis larvae and wooly buggers.

Good luck and let us know how that 7.5' works out for ya.

ended up with 3 short rods...a 6.5' med... the other a 7' med-fast, both used graphites and a 6.5' vintage fiberglass for good measure.

I expect they'll all do an adequate job and maybe one will shine.

Hi FM

Yeah using all those rods will be a challenge...heh...heh... but when you're 300 miles away from the nearest fly shop sometimes the E-bay shotgun approach can be helpful. 

To tell you the truth, either I have cabin fever, or more likely, I'm kinda excited about all the brookie opportunities near me. Other than the Straight, they're my best chance at finally becoming a trouter.

For a guy that spent 25 yrs lusting for a 6# largemouth, I'll admit lusting for a 10" brookie seems a little insane!

Update, there was a little bug that prevented registered users from editing their own post.  It should be working correctly.  You were the first person that mentioned it

namekagon wrote BTW...I hate not being able to edit my posts (correct my typing) on this site!

namekagon you can edit any of your previous post.  There should be an edit button next to and before the 'quote' button on any of your post.  You must be signed into the site though.  Here is a pic of me signed in and having the edit button.