sweetandsalt
Well-known member
There was a heap of snow pack in the mountains of Idaho and Montana this past winter. Nevertheless, I headed west on June 11th so as not to miss the early season mayfly hatches. Anyone who fished the northern Rocky watersheds this spring experienced the same plethora of raging high and off color flows of many a great river. The Missouri River at Craig, MT was at 17,500 in mid-June; I like to fish it at around 4,000 CFS. I never made it down there this season for the first time since the 1980’s. Snow melt is a given but additionally we were caught up in a changeable weather pattern of massive thunderstorms pelting us with prodigious rain fall, hail stones like marbles and more snow yet in the high country through June. Pleasant enough temperature during the day but into the upper 30’s at night had me zipping up my sleeping bag all the way. Our great and spacious tent did survive the precipitation and big winds with aplomb and its screened in vestibule was invaluable as the wet environment spawned exceptional hatches of mosquitoes; far more impressive than the more sparse and late emergences of PMDs.
Spring fed rivers like the legendary Henry’s Fork and some smaller creeks were largely impervious to the accelerating snow melt so such habitats in our repertoire received emphasis in our movable tent camp angling decisions. I often tend to gravitate to some larger rivers but this year was the reverse as smaller streams where often in far better condition to cast a dry fly upon.
A fly fisher needs all the good luck he can muster and as such I had the great fortune to receive from the creative folks at Sage two advance field test examples of rods to be introduced today, July 11th, at the Orlando, FL, IFTD Show. A brand new series of six rods named DART are 7 ½’/#’s 0 - 4-weight plus a 6 1/2’/#3. My sample is cobbled up with an unsanded graphite grey blank with black wraps, a final taper but far from the finished cosmetics which will be a shade of green. The now ubiquitous and ergonomically excellent blunt Wells grip featured on contemporary Sage trout rods is present and this blank’s butt is slenderer than a pencil. Unusually, these relatively short rods are all built in a three-piece configuration. This series of small stream specialty rods is unique in more than one way among Sage offerings; it is designed by Sage rod design team member, intelligent and enthusiastic, Peter Knox, with the blessings of head designer, Jerry Siem. Based on my experience with DART, Peter has a bright future ahead of him from which we fly fishers will be the beneficiaries.
DART departs from recent Sage rods like X in that its taper is more progressive; light and responsive in the tip section, flexing nicely into the mid taper and finally yielding to Sage’s signature reserve power in the lower butt to support all that bends above it. It is not deeply full flexing like Circa was, nor a fast continuum of changing flexural profile like excellent 8 ½’/#’s 4 and 5 X but a quick recovering medium fast taper optimal for short to medium accurate and delicate presentations in small stream environments. I don’t believe I landed a trout larger than about 17” with DART but it has the goods to handle such fish and larger while also the finesse making smaller fish feel that big. This new series puts Sage performance into the hands of small habitat specialists like larger freshwater and saltwater anglers have raved about for decades.
Well, I may have fished more intimate streams than usual benefiting from DART and my smaller river favorite 8 ½’/#5 X but the Henry’s Fork, Upper Big Hole and Beaverhead where clear enough and wadeable in areas too. I mentioned the stormy and windy conditions that were too prevalent so a 5-weight that laughs at wind was called for as well. DART has been held to a high level of secrecy but it has been rumored for months that super high performance Method was to be replaced with a Konnetic HD replacement series. These rich maroon with red thread wrap rods are called “Ignitor”. This newest in the Sage heritage of specialty performance rods designed for when each cast counts began with TCR, Technical Casting Rod. I caught my best permit on a TCR#9 in Belize. Then came lighter and perhaps smoother and more forgiving TCX. It is hard to say without side-by-side comparative analysis but a TCX 9’/#7 I fished wading skinny flats in the southern Bahamas is, in my memory, the preeminent flats 7-weight ever. I fish a 6-weight Method, the third generation of this lineage as a drift boat dry fly rod. Cradling “Big Red” when perched in the bow of a drift boat, I see a good bulge in the shadows of an overhanging alder 75’ in front of our drift and somehow my fly is there…almost as if by telepathy. Method might not be the rod for all occasions but when a max line speed, tight, straight loop is called upon at distance, nothing else comes close.
And now, finally, Ignitor, in a 9’/#5 configuration. This is a fast and powerful rod; there is nothing medium about it. Sure there is some degree of modulation in the tip section as there is in Method too but there is nothing one could describe as “softness” in the tip. Nor should there be as Ignitor is about potent precision and zero counter-flex. Line accelerates off this tip with a mission to go exactly where the caster pointed. To be clear, I fished Ignitor as a big river dry fly instrument. Its precise communication with it RIO Gold line, which after some switching about I also fished on DART and X as well, facilitated sensitive slip-striking including some larger trout without a single busted tippet to fly Trileen Knot or 5X tippet 6 or 7 turn Blood Knot…4X when fishing Drake patterns. Ignitor is a little quicker but lighter in touch than Method. Montana’s Official State Rod is the 9’/#5 and Ignitor was the only such rod I fished for my month long camping/fishing trip. My fishing partner did the same sporting his also great 9’/#5 ONE and I took advantage of its presence to switch with him now and then for perspective. ONE is plenty capable in its own right but a lively sensitive thing in the shadow of this ultimate power house. Wind? What wind? Only a bend in my 5’ tippet revealed it was blowing hard. Fishing an Ignitor in a 5-weight makes me seriously interested in fishing it in an 8-weight on a bonefish flat.
Sage is surely on a roll with a synthesis of sophisticated material science, elite blank fabrication craftsmanship and cutting edge creative design. I have enjoyed the opportunity to have my angling benefit from their newest superb fly rods and once we all get to test cast and experience their benefits, many will understand why.
Spring fed rivers like the legendary Henry’s Fork and some smaller creeks were largely impervious to the accelerating snow melt so such habitats in our repertoire received emphasis in our movable tent camp angling decisions. I often tend to gravitate to some larger rivers but this year was the reverse as smaller streams where often in far better condition to cast a dry fly upon.
A fly fisher needs all the good luck he can muster and as such I had the great fortune to receive from the creative folks at Sage two advance field test examples of rods to be introduced today, July 11th, at the Orlando, FL, IFTD Show. A brand new series of six rods named DART are 7 ½’/#’s 0 - 4-weight plus a 6 1/2’/#3. My sample is cobbled up with an unsanded graphite grey blank with black wraps, a final taper but far from the finished cosmetics which will be a shade of green. The now ubiquitous and ergonomically excellent blunt Wells grip featured on contemporary Sage trout rods is present and this blank’s butt is slenderer than a pencil. Unusually, these relatively short rods are all built in a three-piece configuration. This series of small stream specialty rods is unique in more than one way among Sage offerings; it is designed by Sage rod design team member, intelligent and enthusiastic, Peter Knox, with the blessings of head designer, Jerry Siem. Based on my experience with DART, Peter has a bright future ahead of him from which we fly fishers will be the beneficiaries.
DART departs from recent Sage rods like X in that its taper is more progressive; light and responsive in the tip section, flexing nicely into the mid taper and finally yielding to Sage’s signature reserve power in the lower butt to support all that bends above it. It is not deeply full flexing like Circa was, nor a fast continuum of changing flexural profile like excellent 8 ½’/#’s 4 and 5 X but a quick recovering medium fast taper optimal for short to medium accurate and delicate presentations in small stream environments. I don’t believe I landed a trout larger than about 17” with DART but it has the goods to handle such fish and larger while also the finesse making smaller fish feel that big. This new series puts Sage performance into the hands of small habitat specialists like larger freshwater and saltwater anglers have raved about for decades.
Well, I may have fished more intimate streams than usual benefiting from DART and my smaller river favorite 8 ½’/#5 X but the Henry’s Fork, Upper Big Hole and Beaverhead where clear enough and wadeable in areas too. I mentioned the stormy and windy conditions that were too prevalent so a 5-weight that laughs at wind was called for as well. DART has been held to a high level of secrecy but it has been rumored for months that super high performance Method was to be replaced with a Konnetic HD replacement series. These rich maroon with red thread wrap rods are called “Ignitor”. This newest in the Sage heritage of specialty performance rods designed for when each cast counts began with TCR, Technical Casting Rod. I caught my best permit on a TCR#9 in Belize. Then came lighter and perhaps smoother and more forgiving TCX. It is hard to say without side-by-side comparative analysis but a TCX 9’/#7 I fished wading skinny flats in the southern Bahamas is, in my memory, the preeminent flats 7-weight ever. I fish a 6-weight Method, the third generation of this lineage as a drift boat dry fly rod. Cradling “Big Red” when perched in the bow of a drift boat, I see a good bulge in the shadows of an overhanging alder 75’ in front of our drift and somehow my fly is there…almost as if by telepathy. Method might not be the rod for all occasions but when a max line speed, tight, straight loop is called upon at distance, nothing else comes close.
And now, finally, Ignitor, in a 9’/#5 configuration. This is a fast and powerful rod; there is nothing medium about it. Sure there is some degree of modulation in the tip section as there is in Method too but there is nothing one could describe as “softness” in the tip. Nor should there be as Ignitor is about potent precision and zero counter-flex. Line accelerates off this tip with a mission to go exactly where the caster pointed. To be clear, I fished Ignitor as a big river dry fly instrument. Its precise communication with it RIO Gold line, which after some switching about I also fished on DART and X as well, facilitated sensitive slip-striking including some larger trout without a single busted tippet to fly Trileen Knot or 5X tippet 6 or 7 turn Blood Knot…4X when fishing Drake patterns. Ignitor is a little quicker but lighter in touch than Method. Montana’s Official State Rod is the 9’/#5 and Ignitor was the only such rod I fished for my month long camping/fishing trip. My fishing partner did the same sporting his also great 9’/#5 ONE and I took advantage of its presence to switch with him now and then for perspective. ONE is plenty capable in its own right but a lively sensitive thing in the shadow of this ultimate power house. Wind? What wind? Only a bend in my 5’ tippet revealed it was blowing hard. Fishing an Ignitor in a 5-weight makes me seriously interested in fishing it in an 8-weight on a bonefish flat.
Sage is surely on a roll with a synthesis of sophisticated material science, elite blank fabrication craftsmanship and cutting edge creative design. I have enjoyed the opportunity to have my angling benefit from their newest superb fly rods and once we all get to test cast and experience their benefits, many will understand why.
