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Sage 7136 4

4K views 23 replies 9 participants last post by  jcc_00 
#1 ·
With the grilse season getting into full swing over here in Scotland I have been using my lightweight Sage. I think it is great with a 7 or 8 weight silk line and 8lb breaking strain nylon delicate presentation is realy easy. I have one major grumble where oh where do you hook your fly when walking between pools. I cannot attach it to the reel seat as the handle is too fat and there is not a fly holder off the end of the handle. What are your solutions?.
 
#2 ·
This is one of my major 'peeves' too. But easy

answer.

You hook your fly into the bottom collecting guide, then run the leader behind the reel seat and a couple of turns of the reel to snug it up. End game is leader comes from rod tip, behind the reel seat and up to the first collecting guide.

This works even at 70 mph down the freeway on top of your car.
fae
 
#4 ·
It's a problem, but.....

Here's what I do. You have a cork handle, right? And hooks points penetrate cork, right?

Even when I have a keeper on the rod, I generally place my fly in the cork, especially on the brushy streams I fish and have to walk through. Yes, it leaves the rod handle looking a little "ratty", but I use the same hook hole to the degree possible. And it works better than any keeper I have ever used.

(Besides, rods are for using, and catching fish, not for looking pretty!):hehe:

BobK
 
#5 ·
Hi Malcolm!

As I like to fish a very long leader on a floating line, I run into the same problem.

For what it's worth, I hook the fly two and sometimes three snake guides ABOVE the second stripping guide (i.e. last stripping guide going towards the tip of the rod), run the leader around the reel at the reel foot, and wind up tight while maintaining tension on the leader. Seems to work.

Tight lines! TB
 
#6 ·
Bob K you are a philistine, why do Sage go to all the bother of putting on AAA corks for people to stick their flies in it.:tsk_tsk:

Topher it looks as if this is the way I'll have to go, if both you and Fred say that is what you do, I'll just have to do it.
How was you opening fortnight? plenty of fish?
 
#8 ·
Malcolm, I'm sure you could easily buy a keeper ring from a decent tackle shop and whip it onto the blank. Since you tie your own flies, this should be well within your skills. You could probably even just glue it with waterproof superglue or epoxy.

Someone once advised me against hooking flies onto the stripping ring, as it may damage the liner. Don't know if there's any truth in this, but on the precautionary principle, I try to remember to hook the fly onto the leg of the ring rather than through the ring itself.

Given the price of Sage rods it does seem pretty naff that they don't give us a keeper ring, though.
 
#9 ·
Malcolm,

I'm with Fred and Topher as well. There are 2 benefits that I find with this method. The first is that I use Vac Racs on my truck and move about my favourite rivers at freeway speeds, hooking my fly to the 2nd or 3rd guide leaves it pointing head into the wind which doesn't screw the feathers up. The second benefit is that this allows me to keep even very long leaders without having the flyline leader connection going into the tip top. Therefore, when I unhook the fly and start to pull off line I don't have to monkey around with getting the connection outside the tip.
 
#10 ·
Hook keepers

Gardener,

I don't think that Sage is leaving off the hook keeper to be "naff" (which I assume means cheap), in fact I believe it is a question of style. Most of the North American doublehanders do not use hook keepers. In fact the very first one - my beloved Sage 9140-3 (which I built myself) - had one, due to the fact that all my single handers had them. As it turns out - I wish I'd left it off. The problem is that just above the cork is where the balance point of most rods is, it is therefore the place you put your hand when you carry the rod. It is uncomfortable and annoying, if I used this rod more I'd remove it!

In being part of the designing and testing of the CND Specialist rods as well as being involved in introducing the CND line to North America, one of the first cosmetic suggestions we made to CND's master designer Nobuo was that he leave the hook keepers off (they were even cool little collapsible ones) as nobody in North America would use them.
 
#11 ·
Malcolm: Kush and I are on the same page as usual (although I have yet to catch Intruder madness, a visit to the West Coast would surely infect me!).

Kush makes a good point about the direction of the fly when the rods are affixed to a rod rack on the hood/roof of one's car. If one uses a hookkeeper and not the method he describes, the fly ends up looking like one of those "troll dolls" hanging from a rearview mirror (i.e. a 'Don King' hairdo, as in boxing promoter).

See "Update on Gaspe' Fishing" for a brief fishing report on the start to the season.

Best regards, TB
 
#12 ·
Sorry I spoke

I did not realise I would cause such a fuss when I critised, all be it slightly, the Sage 7136 4.
When moving by car I usually turn the fly to ensure its hair stays in place.
I feel that if Sage thinned the handle where the reel fitting is the fly would clip in beside the reel foot. Just to upset you all a little bit more I never liked Sage reel fittings, I have to be very careful in selecting the right Hardy 3.75"W as only one fits the Sage. The Hardy pulls the balance point nicely back to the cork. I had a nice picture of a B&W solution but there are too many pixies or goblins or some such.

Malcolm
 
#14 ·
I vote with Willie on this one .... crass, very crass.

BobK said:
Call me a Philistine or whatever you want - me, I just like to catch fish, and while the rod is critical, I consider cork (even 3A grade) "expendable".

BobK:smokin:
We, of UK per- sway- shun (that's three single malts under your "belt") would never treat our horses, women .. or rods with such distain.:hehe: Oil your reels, Carnuba wax your rods, light wash on rinse cycle in the washer for our wet flys (Woolite), stiff upper lip .... very manly men all. And not a Viagra user in the bunch.
:whoa:
 
#16 ·
Ah ye of little faith ...

Inland you build a heck of a rod (Inland was sweet enough to send me his 'custom built' Burkie... Dear God does this man know what he's doing!!!) but as they would say in "Fiddler on the Roof."

TRADITION!!

I 'learned' on a greenheart with a silk line about 50 years ago. Nothing like it ... back to "roots."

Sigh ... wish the darned things didn't cost so much, re-greasing your line twice a day, etc.

Malcom's in the Grove! Bless you my Son (should say Willie's probably as old as I am, ergo .. the Tradition.)

Life is pretty darned good.
fae
 
#17 ·
Got a hook-keeper on my 7136 and it's STAYING !!I use it to place the rod in the trunk of the car and to walk through the bush to those secret spots on the Matapedia etc !(down near the cork seems to keep the hoook from catching onto branches etc.That being said i dohoo it onto a guide but run the leader through a reel piller instead of around the sharp edges of the reel foot
Cheers
Brian
 
#23 ·
Hook Keepers and the Lot

- I once saw a small device used on a two hander that was a attached to the second guide bracket. The device looked like a small cork with a dowel through it at a slight angle. The leader went around the reel seat and up to the second guide and then reversed on the small dowel. Then the hook was slipped into the leg of the first guide in the right direction for traveling with the rod. The device was very small and just let the line reverse direction to hold the double salmon hook at the first stripping guide.
It looked pretty Yankee to me but it worked pretty well - I have to admit I had never tried in on my 7136-4, but I usually am restricted to single hooks anyway. Have at it.......
 
#24 ·
Hook Keeper cont.

Thinking more about it, a small "S" hook would perform the same function and be available in any hardware store in small sizes to accomplish the same thing. Has anybody tried this approach and if so, can you comment on whether it was convenient and/or effective ?
 
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