SAGE R8 SALT
- NAFA
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
THE NEW STANDARD IN SAGE PERFORMANCE
By Peter Morse
There’s been a substantial changing of the guard at Sage’s Bainbridge Island headquarters over the past few years. A new generation of rod designers has arrived, bringing fresh ideas about how rods should perform and how best to exploit the materials they’re made from.
The R8 rods are Sage’s current flagship series. Each new generation of graphite and resin cloth sends designers down a different path. It’s their challenge to envisage and to design what they want in a rod series, then to roll it, bake it, and wrap it into something better than the previous series.
Past Sage series were a bit of a naming jumble, with no clear generational identity outside the main flagship rod. The new policy is to create a core series first and then attach that name to different rod styles within it. So, the first R8 release is known as the Core rod. Now we have the R8 Salt, the Spey series, and the R8 Classic, with more to come—eventually covering almost the full range of rod actions. A fast model is due soon.
I had kept many of my older Sage rods, but the R8’s changed all of that. I’ve had a bit of a sell-off. I just don’t pick up any of the older rods anymore now that the R8’s are out. Rods are a bit like cars, young blokes want FAST, but in reality, fast, stiff rods have one advantage, they can deal with a wide range of line weights and tapers, but they extract a price in terms of strained tendons.
Slower rods bend deeper, sharing the load better so the rod bends rather than your tendons taking the strain. I have grown to appreciate rods that bend a bit deeper, and they have that hard-to-define quality called “feel”.
The Salt version of the R8 is a touch stiffer than the Core version. It is extremely light, and if I were to describe its action, I would say “fast”—but on the moderate side of fast. These are truly lovely rods to cast and to fish with. I’ve put in quite a bit of time with them and caught some great fish along the way. Like the Core series, these are incredibly smooth rods and an absolute delight to fish with. They have plenty of pull as well, and a couple of boast-worthy GTs have been well and truly tamed by the #9 and #10. The #9 is a particularly sweet rod for northern Australia. If I had only one rod for north of the Tropic of Capricorn it would be the #9 R8 Salt. If I could have two, the second would be the #7 R8 Salt.
My advice to fly casters who want to improve is simple: above all else, practise being smooth.
There’s also an old saying shared across several sports and professions—ambulance drivers and military types know it well: “Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.” Perhaps these rods are actually faster than they feel, but one thing’s certain, they’re smooth.