Sage 6wt 121/2', 3-piece Perforrmance

Sage 6wt 121/2', 3-piece Performance

DGroden,
I've fished the 6126 Sage almost exclusively as my late summer and fall rod on the Klamath and Trinity Rivers for the past several years and I love it . I now have it set up with a Rio Mid-spey versi-tip and a Redington Large Arbor 9-10, which really balances it out nicely.

The rod may not be quite as "fast" as the Scott but it has a progressive action into it's mid section and butt and I really like the way it casts. The rod can pull the lighter tips (floater, intermediate, and type 3) pretty easily in light to moderate flows. I've found that if the flow isn't heavy the rod will allow you to routinely break the type three sink tip and a heavily weighted fly from below the surface, this is occasionally even do-able with the type 6 tip, and go straight into a snake roll delivery. The type six tip will often force you to a roll cast to bring the heavier tip to the surface before making your cast in moderate and stronger flows.

I've had the good fortune to land several 6 -12# steelhead & jack salmon, and countless half-pounders on the the rod and it handles all sizes easily yet isn't so stout to take the fun out of the fight.

About the only two negatives I might add about going light are both the Sage and the Scott six weight two-handers have a butt grip that is way too short as manufactured. I ended up adding 1 1/2" of cork to make it more ergonomic for the various spey casts. The other draw back of light lining it is that on windy days these lighter lines tend to allow your cast to drift off course a might. You can still put it out there with this rod but on windy days you can count on needing to make some adjustments. Hope this perspective helps, John

Sage 6126-3 Performance

Nevada Caster,
The way I extended the butt on my rod was simple and direct, I hired my friend at the local fly shop to do it for $25 or $30. Actually, the technique he used was pretty straight forward and it wouldn't be too difficult to do it yourself but in view of how much these rods cost I really didn't want to risk screwing it up so I could save a few bucks.

Anyway, should you be of stouter heart than I, here's how he did it. Using a hacksaw he cut off the butt behind the real seat. The exposed rod blank is hollow. He then selected a tapered piece of scrap graphite rod that was long enough and thick enough to slide inside the hollow of the blank until it fit snug, and yet the internal graphite sleeve extends out of the blank far enough from the blank/reel seat that you have enough stock to build a cork butt upon it from pieces of cork rings. This internal graphite piece has to be the right diameter to fit snug enough inside the blank that once epoxied in place it will form solid continuous backbone within a good portion of the grip. Don't epoxy anything yet. Now once the internal graphite sleeve is fitted, he marks the exact point on the graphite sleeve where it exits the blank at the end of the reel seat.

This is the spot where the top or last cork ring will end at. Removing the graphite sleeve, he builds a cork grip by scratch by stacking the cork rings one upon the other from the butt end piece up, and stopping at the spot marked on the graphite sleeve.

Then he inserted the part of the graphite sleeve that remains exposed (the end that will eventually go into the rod blank end) inside a drill chuck, and he shaped the butt to the desired shape with differing grades of sandpaper from coarse to very fine. One reference I saw on this suggests using a bastard file to do your rough cuts the finalizing your tapered shape with #36, #80, and #120 sand papers. You may wish to look at "The Care and Repair of Fishing Tackle" by Mel Marshall for some good photos and descriptions of his techniques in this regard.

After the desired cork butt shape is created, the sleeve is removed from the chuck, coated with epoxy, inserted into the blank and snugly seated tight right up against the end of the reel seat.

Hope this description is of some use should you end up being a braver lad than I. John