I’ve had the HD 4 for about three years now. Though I’m married to long rods, this HD4 is still used in my arsenal. This is the only 2 hand Sage I can speak to, but I’ll give it a try.

It’s a little power house. A fast rod with fast recovery but still very workable for those of us who like through actions. It may lack the amount of bend in the cork that some like to feel. It will throw skagit to even a 15m for touch an go Spey. Thats not a typo. I like it deep loaded. Light in the hand and a very intuitive stick that speaks well to the hand. For whatever reason, I can go right from 15 ft G+ to the HD 4 with no difficulty at all. It was highly recommended to me and I have been happy and sometimes pleasantly surprised by how it can step up to the plate when called to do so. In a fight it will be the top 1/3 that does most of the work. Hope this helps

 

Brilliant

 

I love my 8130 and 7120 X Speys designed by Jerry Siem. I assumed I would love the HD Trout Spey he designed, but I never bothered to cast it—why?

For one, trout spey versus steelheading with a two-hander are two different animals. (I highly recommend reading Steven Byrd's Trout Spey book.) If there's a hatch, I don't have to step down a run, and most of the time I only fish my 22' SA Scandi Lite head plus 15' leader. Sometimes I don't even get more than a few feet of the head out of the rod.

I summer on the Madison just outside Yellowstone and fish a 589 Burkheimer single-hand rod, tossing dry flies as I head upstream, then changing my leader out and swinging soft hackles downstream to my truck. This September, I finally bought a trout spey for fall hatches—a Burkheimer 3113. It's sublime with soft hackles. I have single-hand rods I use if I want to toss streamers, so this rod is ideal for trout spey.

Enjoy your journey for the next IT rod.

 

Love the Sage HD Trout Spey rod series … I have a custom version in the 3wt 11ft specification. But I use it primarily in a single hand fashion. I’ve had a lot of different Sage graphites / rods over the years and believe this is their best formulation of graphite, resin & taper, ever.

 

I'm pretty obsessed with the HD series. The HD 3110 is literally my favorite rod in my entire quiver which includes a number of two hand Sage X and Sage Ones as well. In fact I love the HD 3110 so much that I recently sold my Sage G5 4113 to pick up an HD 4113 from a forum member on here, although I've yet to cast the HD 4113, so take my exact opinion with a bit of salt.

That said, the HD 3110 is a sensational rod and highly dynamic in my opinion; it's a blast whether I've got a feisty 12" rainbow or a 4-5lb chunker and I'm most impressed with it's ability to cast seemingly impossible distances. I am by no means an expert caster, but I can bang out +100ft casts in awkward challenging conditions all day, even with long leaders and a wide range of flies.

I ended up going with the G5 4113 for a 4wt because it was half the price of the HD, but it never quite delivered the same feel of the HD 3110. The G5 is a bit slower in its action and I struggled to find a rhythm or the same effortless long distance casts as the HD, although it still fought big fish with aplomb and efficiently landed me some very fun +6lb salmonids.

I am crazy excited to break out the HD 4113.