Jon, I answered this question on the tackle board. If you want not too expensive then go with the Lamiglas tropic pro 8.5 two piece rod. You can buy this for a hundred plus change. As mentioned before, this is a 50/50 two piece. I still prefer the 30/70 two piece. The only place that you can buy this one at a reasonable cost is through OTI. Anglers Pro is out of stock on the Smith 80P/35 blank and not sure when they will come back in. Those Japan blanks are hard to come by. They do have in stock finished rods but you are looking at $400 plus. I have not seen any US mfgs with the 30/70 configuration and very few even with the 50/50 other than lamiglas. The Lamiglas is available as a blank. The factory rods use hardloy guides and I prefer sics. There is one guy named Paul that has some jigmaster blanks in stock. He may have a two piece but I don't know for sure. As an alternative, you can buy a two piece reel seat made by Lakeland and sold through Mudhole and make your own two piece. However, this would end up as a 20/80 configuration at best cutting the blank at around 20 inches and the rest is tip. So if you have a 7.5 ft blank, it would be 20" butt and 6 ft tip section. Believe me, I have researched this extensively in the past two years.
