I Beat on Sage’s newest offering; couldn’t break it
If I were a rod manufacturer I’d come up with a new rod series each year and tout it as the best to come along the pike, like, forever.
That’s what Sage is saying about their newest addition to the family, the ONE rod, which I just got a sneak preview of, via securing “one” and packing it into nowhere Alaska. I got the nine-weight model with a fighting butt, a beautiful black shaft, black guide wraps and bronze trim wraps, that weighs about 3 ounces, casts a true weight-forward nine line, and yet feels like a five or six-weight. I bent the hell out of that stick in Alaska, fighting and losing and fighting and landing a half-dozen king salmon between 17 and 30 pounds. I remember thinking, “I wonder how they’ll feel when I send this stick back in pieces?” But it never broke and I mean, I put some bend in the thing, trying to keep bright kings from running out of freshwater and into the Bering Sea where they would have been made toast by the seals.
Putting a big bend in Sage's new stick.
So, have you noticed the Sage advertisement to the right of this post? Yes, Sage supports AT and you could surmise that this is just a gratis post to appease some sort of arrangement between that company and myself. But the truth is I’ve had no pressure to deliver ink on this product or any other in the Sage line. In fact, I was fishing Sage rods long before a writing career, when my father gave me an RPL as a high-school graduation present. They’re good sticks and this new one, the ONE, may be the best of the lot.
You can go to Sage’s new Web site and check out all the gory details, but the gist of it is this: the rod uses Konnetic Technology, new materials, and a new manufacturing process to create a super lightweight, yet powerful stick. I don’t know how I can write a review that really sums up everything. You have to go to a shop, request one of these, and cast it. Super smooth. Super accurate. Super powerful. Super light. Really, does it feel like a six weight? Ok, maybe a seven. But on a recent headhunting mission to a lake in central Montana, I took this rod and it felt great on a trout lake. I handed it to a friend who kindof grumbled that they had to throw this rod and after the first cast he said, “Holy smokes. That’s a nine?”
These rods are available in 3 through 10 weight. Click on the ad for more details and go throw one. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this stick, hear how it feels in your hands.
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