I am not directing this at anyone else's post, but it's meant to express where I am with Sage rods. I've had a great experience with Sage rods throughout my flyfishing years and am proud to have their support as a sponsor on the Forum. Sage rods have been a critical part of my flyfishing experience. As I wasted time with sub-standard rods of lesser price as a young fool, the day finally came when I bought an RPL. WOW
Now tell me folks, was that a rod or was that a rod! Whether 4wt or 10wt, that rod was the perfect marriage of flex, power and durability. It had soul, and balls too. I still have a few of them and with all the newfangled stuff out there I put a line on them and say WOW still. Funny how I try all of the new whizbang singlehanders at all the shows and they just don't seem to give me the love that my old RPL's do. They might have more power, be lighter, be prettier, etc - but that casting soul is hard to duplicate. Maybe it's just me, and I need to get modern but there were lots of happy campers during the RPL days across the whole range of line weights.
Then came the RPLXi, which at first was harder to tune into, but once you took that 5pc 8wt out onto a bonefish flat for the day... WOW. Then after using them for years in a 9wt for striper, the castability is as automatic as could be when a fish cruised in from an unexpected angle -or- when the wind kicked up from the wrong side and you had to cast backwards. Eventually got that love again.
With spey, like many I was weaned on lesser quality rods with overhead tapers until I bought the 10150-4 and the 7136-4 mostly with meal allowances from a contract position where I starved myself for the 27.50 per day, some days eating a snickers bar for dinner to get closer to the goal. It was worth it. I eventually hopped onto the 8126-3 euro as well, rumored to be designed by Goran Anderson. I went through the entire gamut of two-handed rods for fishing the beach and this was clearly the best at the time for the job, not to mention it was among the best Scandinavian fishing tools and well ahead of it's time.
These two rods were very different but I came to love them both. I fished the 9140-4 for a while as well but it was not mine so had a short fling with it, all before a CND touched my hands.
I caught a lot of winter fish on the Sage 10wt and a lot of summer fish on the 7wt, I even lost a good number of big winter fish on the 7wt when I shouldn't have been using it. The big rod covered the Skagit, Skykomish, Hoh, and other big rivers in winter conditions, and the 7136 did a fine job of putting flies over steelhead through the summer and fall.
I can see how some folks would not like the action of the 7136, however it's like a temperamental woman. You can fight her to act the way you want, or you can give in and act the way it wants. If you gave in, she had a sweet heart. Well I eventually fell in love and had a hard time putting her down when the river rose and the big natives came to town. As fate would have it, I would hook up and get thoroughly spanked by these big Cascade or Olympic peninsula fish because of my love for her. It was hard, but I eventually started to fish the right rod in winter.
The 10150 would put a 15ft sinktip past the main chute on the Chapel run on the Skagit with a flick. It would tame a 25# Hoh buck, if I could only hook one
With the right lines, it could overhead cast almost as far as Kush could snake roll, on a good day (for me that is). It was a cannon and has been bent hard by some big winter fish in it's day.
Today we are blessed with so many good choices as the Spey phenomenon blossoms on the flyfishing scene. But let's not forget that Sage really ignited this fire with the 7136, 9140, and 10150's. So in a sense, they are a part of the new tradition, a north american rennaissance of spey.
Spey, although just a fraction of the overall industry, is probably the biggest growth area in FF. With Loomis, Loop, T&T, and of course CND also in the scene the choices have grown from the old brownie days. Who knows what the situation will be tomorrow - but for today there are lots of choices, rapid evolution, and the winners are
us. Enjoy the ride as they say.