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08/05/11

fly fishing hawaii:

the sage one.

 

for those out there who follow this blog, you probably noticed that there hasn’t been one in a while.  i got no excuse for that.  for a simple guy who never carried a camera while fishing and is not that “swift” when it comes to technology you can imagine that blogging can become somewhat of a pain in the ass.  when you fish as much as we do, sometimes you begin to think that there has to be more to life than just fishing.  so you take a break and do other things just long enough to realize that for some bums, i mean people (i won’t mention any names) there really isn’t much else to life.  anyway sean got us into a couple of the latest and greatest sage rods to try (sean’s really good like that) and that was just the thing to get this insane gear crazy fly junkie back to doing what he does.

 

the sage one is a new series that sage will be offering in 2012.  the first thing that you’ll notice is that the rod color is black (well black ice to be exact).  a black sage rod... what will they think of next.  what struck me was that the butt section of the rod is ultra thin.  we got the eight weight to try and the diameter of the first section of the blank is smaller than many five weights.  the quality of the components and the craftsmanship were what we’ve all come to expect from sage and at 3.5 oz. the rod feels and is extremely light.  the rod is fast, but as is always my concern with the latest and greatest i wondered if this new stick would be “fast with feel”... only one way to find that out.

 

i fished the rod for the past two days.  the first day i lined it up with an airflo bonefish 8wt. and took it for a little sight fishing trial out at ke’ehi.  doug and i spent the day taking turns taking shots at fish.  the rod performed flawlessly.  total control and dead on balls accurate in close.  the rod tracked extremely well and it easily delivered the fly straight into the stiff afternoon hawaiian trade wind.  best of all it had the “feel” when casting and the “boosting power” that i am always yammering about.  we hooked some bones and doug even got into a nice whitey (trevally... you’re welcome doug) that eventually got the best of us and rubbed right through the 20lb fluorocarbon tippet that we were using.  overall, i was very impressed by the rods performance in the sight fishing arena as well as doug’s ability to spot fish.  absolutely no complaints on both fronts, which is pretty rare for me.

 

yesterday i took the rod out on a bombing mission out at hi kai with benny young.  i lined it with an 8wt. intermediate rio outbound short.  when i told benny that the name of the rod was one and showed it to him, the first thing he said was, “this is bad ass”.  although benny is on his way to being the gen next of skagit masters and claims he “doesn’t even know how to cast a single hand rod” this soon to be sixteen year old casted the rod way better than many i’ve seen around here.  this being the second time i used the rod i knew it was going to be good and it was.  i fished it all day with about six inches of backing hanging out of the reel.  the rod wanted more but having backing in the stripping basket makes for the bombing cast that i call “as far as the tangle”.  we did get some bones.  the first one caught some coral and ruined my brand new rio outbound short.  not the rods fault though, i forgot to set the drag and didn’t stop it while clearing the line from the basket.  amatuer manuver for sure.  oh well sometimes like that especially here in hawaii.  maybe rio will come up with the first reef proof fly line... now that would be an innovation to top all others. anyway the sage one once again proved to be up to the challenge of hawaiian waters and is everything that at least this crazy guy looks for in a rod.  you’ll definitely see me hucking "one" around as soon as i can get a few of my own. i have a feeling that the line to buy this rod is going to be pretty long...  see you on the water!

 

pretty "bad ass".

 

the smile tells the story... the sage one gets dougs approval.

 

i don't really understand hoop, scrim, positioning fibers, or konnic technology, but i know an awesome rod when i cast one.  this boney didn't seem to be that excited about the rod.

 

benny's been doing some damage around here lately with his deathstar (sage 7126-4 tcx). also a "bad ass" rod huh benny.

 

whether sight fishing or bombing the sage one is destined to be a favorite.  i'd bet on seeing a lot of these soon on waters near you.

 

as for me i need another 8wt. like i need a hole in my head.  but when your head is as full of holes as mine is, what's a few more...  good times.

 

clay.


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