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Okay, when these rods first came out, I though they were the ugliest rods I had ever seen. I mean, who ever thought of a rod blank in that color?!? Well, through the months, the color of the rod has kind of grown on me. Kind of like a fungus, but a fungus I have come to admire nonetheless. Having recently come to be in the market for a new three weight (yeah, like when are we NOT in the market for a new rod?), I started weighing my options. I pretty much narrowed my rods down to the Sage Lauch and the Scott V2. Since I have a V2 in a five weight, I already know that these are fantastic rods. Only issue was that they are a very moderate actioned rod and I wondered what that would translate into in a three weight. I want to be able to throw big bugs with the three weight so I decided to check out the Launch. Read some reviews first on the web and EVERYTHING I read was glowing. Next called and talked to Nate at Fishtech. He was very complimentary about them also so I decided to go and test them. The one I was looking at is the 7.5 foot two piece. Well, Nate strung her up with a WF4 since the reel foot broke off the 3wt reel. DANG CAST REELS!!! Went to the grass and Nate gave her a couple casts. He was amazed obviously with her performance. He handed her to me and I have to say, I was feeling the same way. VERY light in the hand. Almost like it was not even there. Very comfortable grip with the typical primo SAGE cork that is not too narrow or fat. Well, she was loading beautiful with about five feet of line out and then casting into about 50 feet of line like it was the same five. The rod is a medium fast action but VERY sensitive. You could feel every move you made with it. Cosmetics are great too, once you let the coppery, greenish, orangy, something color get inside your skin. Great nickel silver hardware top off a very functional piece of wood for a spacer. Guides are all stiff snake and the wraps are as good as on the TCR. No sloppiness here. And in this day and age of rods not having a tube with them, this one goes beyond with a very attractive green cordura tube with partition on the inner sock. Unfortunately, Nate only had the rack model and I am kind of leary about buying them as I see how some people thwack them against everything in the store. I checked around and found this rod at High Country Flyfishers in North Salt Lake and went and picked it up. $170 for a very nice stick. Another bonus is that High Country also threw in a very nice looking hat with their logo on it. Since I collect fly shop hats, this was a welcome gift.

With that said, I must say, if you are in the market for a new rod and don't want to spend the kids inheritance or if you do but want money for the fishing trip, check into the Launch series. You cannot go wrong.