It’s been 40 years since graphite was introduced as a rod-building material, and just about every year has seen the introduction of new models that manufacturers claim are improvements over previous offerings. Were I more cynical, I’d suggest this has owed as much to getting us to buy something again as to offer us something better. But that wouldn’t be fair, would it?
Consider that the best rods of the 1980s are still fine fly rods, albeit a bit heavier and less durable than their modern counterparts, and were offered mostly in two-piece models. The best fly rods of 2016 are quicker, lighter, more durable due to better resins and composite layups, and perhaps a bit flashier. The great majority of them are also four-piece models, which makes for convenient transport. And if my handy Internet inflation calculator is to be trusted, a four-piece rod that cost $350 in 1984 would cost $775 today, so rod prices aren’t rising a whole lot more than the Consumer Price Index.
But what about improvements in casting and fishing performance? With a few exceptions, these seem to me to represent incremental, as opposed to earth-shaking improvements. But even incremental improvements in rod weight and performance are still improvements. Lighter rod blanks and components can feel livelier and are easier on the arm over the course of the day. New ways of combining and laying up materials make for better tracking and recovery response. And regardless of “unconditional” guarantees, increased durability is the best insurance that you’re buying something meant to last.
What seems clear to me is that the greatest benefit for the broad majority of anglers has come from material and design improvements in mid-priced and low-priced fly rods. During the 1980s, the top U.S. fly-rod companies generally made rods at only one price point, but now they typically offer three or more, with the lower price points featuring last year’s or the year before’s technology, rather than the most up-to-date. But those technologies still represent progress over 1980 or 2000. Today, with top-end rods going for over $800, you can buy a terrific fly rod for $400 or so. And if you’ve got only $200, or $100, you’re still going to find a well-made, reasonably attractive rod that casts, fishes, and lasts just fine.
OK. That’s settled. Now, what’s new in rods for 2016, presented in alphabetical order?
Douglas Outdoors, the new company run by Jim Murphy, fly fishing’s Energizer Bunny, who’s been a honcho at, successively, Teton (remember them?) Thomas and Thomas, Orvis, Redington, and Albright, has been getting some good buzz lately for their new ultralight Upstream series of graphite rods. Four Upstream models for 3-weight and 4-weight lines were introduced last year. They’re a pleasant bamboo tan in color, with soft, moderate actions, internal/spigot ferrules, small cork grips, and cork slide-band reel seats. None of them weigh more than 1.75 ounces, which is astonishing. A couple of my spring-creek-besotted friends had high praise for the 8-foot 8-inch fourpiece 4-weight. This year, Douglas added a two-piece 6-foot 6-inch model and three six-piece models for 3-weight lines at 7 feet, 7 feet 6 inches, and 8 feet. We’re talking briefcase length here. At $350 and $425, depending on the number of sections, they look to challenge some of the new glass rods for a prime place in lightline trout fishing.
Echo has expanded its glass line with three Big Water models at 8 feet 6 inches for 4-weight and 5-weight lines and 9 feet for a 6-weight. I’ve not yet cast them, but Tim Rajeff knows fly rods inside out and was raised in San Francisco, where glass rods were perfected. I’d be surprised if these new models weren’t fine performers, and they’re a bargain at $219.99. Echo also has a number of new graphite rods, including the under-$100 four-piece Base models for line weights 3 through 8, an all-around freshwater series of Ion XL models for 2-weight through 6-weight lines at $139.95, and an updated series of Carbon XL saltwater models for 6-weight through 10-weight lines at $159.95.
While we’re on the subject of fiberglass rods, Fenwick fiberglass rods have also been resurrected. The new Fenglas models are all three-piece rods and made from unidirectional S2 glass. There’s a 6-foot 6-inch 3-weight, 7-foot 4-weight, 7-foot 6-inch 5-weight, and a 7-foot 9-inch 6-weight, and there are 8-foot 3-inch models for 7-weight and 8-weight lines. The blanks are brown and have Wells grips, rather than the familiar old Fenwick half Wells, and use cork-insert, nickel-colored metal uplocking reel seats. I kinda wish they’d picked up the old braid wrap above the grip, as on older Fenwicks, but alas, that’s not to be. They’re $199 to $249, depending on the model.
G. Loomis has expanded its moderate-price-range Pro 4X graphite lineup with four new Pro4x LP (light presentation) models intended for long, delicate casts with extremely light leaders. The additions include a 6-foot 9-inch three-piece 2-weight and three four-piece models: a 3-weight at 7 feet 6 inches, a 4-weight at 8 feet 6 inches, and a 9-foot 5-weight. All four have moderately fast tapers and medium power and feature a custom-anodized aluminum reel seat with a cork composite insert. The 5-weight model was the best-performing under-$400 fly rod in George Anderson’s Yellowstone Angler Fly Rod Shoot Out for 2015. Retail is $325 for the 2-weight and $345 for the 4-weight and 5-weight. Orvis has added a 7-foot 6-inch 3-weight and an 8-foot 6-inch 6-weight to its three-piece fiberglass of Superfine Glass line. I cast a number Superfine Glass models last year and thought they were beautifully finished and fine casters, though perhaps half a line weight or so stronger than labeled. I’ve yet to try the two new models, but expect to find the same with them. Orvis rod designer Shawn Combs explained that the rods were intended to bridge the gap between older, traditional glass rods and graphite models and were developed using Orvis’s slightly overweighted and forward-weighted Superfine lines. Superfine Glass models are bit more expensive this year at $425, but well worth a look. Orvis has also taken a step into the modern world of bamboo with a new three-piece 8-foot 5-weight hollow-built model with a more modern progressive taper. It’s called the 1856 to honor the company’s one hundred and sixtieth year in business. It is priced at $2,795, with a tasty downlocking nickel silver–maple burl reel seat and full Wells grip.
Redington introduced two flyrod families for 2016 — the Hydrogen trout series and the Chromer lineup for two-handed anglers. The very lightweight Hydrogen rods feature single-foot guides for increased tip recovery and a highly skeletonized, CNC-machined, anodized aluminum reel seat to assist in weight reduction. The medium-fast-action blanks have a matte gray finish for minimizing f lash and half Wells high-grade cork grips. Eight four-piece models are offered, from a 7-foot 6-inch 2-weight to 8-foot 6-inch and 9-foot 4-weights, 5-weights, and 6-weights. There are also three 10foot and 11-foot nymphing models for 3-weight and 4-weight lines. Retail on all ten Hydrogen models is $299.95.
Redington’s Chromers are three 11-foot 6-inch switch and five Spey rods from 12 feet 6 inches to 13 feet 6 inches for lines between 325 and 500 grains. These are fast-action matte-black rods that feature black polymer pinch areas on both the top and bottom of the cork grips to allow easy running-line management and added comfort when casting. This looks something like a shortened version of the all-polymer grip on the company’s Vapen series. If they’re as comfortable as the Vapen grips, they should be well received. Retail on all models is $399.95.
The award for Best New Freshwater Rod at the recent dealer show went to Sage for their new four-piece Mod series. Made with Sage’s top-tier Konnetic technology, the Mod, as the name suggests, is a moderate-action rod with an action falling somewhere between the very quick Sage Method and the soft Circa. I’m guessing that the Circa wasn’t as well appreciated by contemporary anglers as Sage hoped, and the somewhat tighter Mod is the company’s response. The few folks I’ve spoken to who’ve cast them gave them high marks, as did voters at the dealer show. Mod blanks are a jade green with similarly colored thread wraps and black trim. Single-handed 2-weight through 6-weight rods at $850 are all 9 feet in length, have black aluminum uplocking zebra-wood-insert reel seats, and a snub-nosed half Wells grip. The 6-weight and 7-weight Spey models are 13 feet at $1,050 and have black anodized aluminum downlocking reel seats.
Sage also introduced a number of midpriced to mid-high-priced models, all in four-piece configurations. The Bolt line is a high-line-speed, superquick rod family of 9-foot single-handed rods for line weights 4 through 8 that’s built with Sage’s second-tier Generation 5 technology. It replaces the VPX of years past. Blanks are salmon colored, reel seats are black anodized (with a rosewood insert on freshwater rods, fighting butts on saltwater models), have Sage’s snub-nosed half Wells grip, use Fuji ceramic strippers and hard-chromed snakes, and are priced at $650. Finally, the Pulse series is a new rod line in Sage’s Graphite IIIe technology that includes 3-weight through 8-weight single-handed rods from 7 feet 6 inches to 10 feet in length and 13-foot and 13foot 6-inch Spey rods for 7-weight and 8-weight lines. It replaces the Response series. Prices are $450 for single-handed models, $550 for switch rods, and $650 for Spey rods.
What is also interesting for 2016 is that Sage has regularized pricing within the families of rods they offer. Konnetic technology models — the most advanced material layups, used in the Circa, Mod, One, Method, and Salt series and for some specialty sticks — are all $850 for single-handed rods, with switch and Spey models adding $100 and $200, respectively to that base. Generation 5 rods — the next rods down on the chain, such as the Bolt and Accel series — are $650 for single-handed models, $750 for switch, and $850 for Spey rods. Graphite IIIe models such as the Pulse and Motive series are $450 for single-handed models, $550 for switch, and $650 for Spey rods. Entry-level Approach models remain unchanged for 2016 at $295. It’s not exactly easy to remember or to visualize the broad range Sage is offering, but it’s getting easier to know what you’ll have to spend.
Scott, which won Best New Saltwater Rod at last year’s dealer show for their midpriced Tidal model and Best New Product of the Show for 2012’s Scott Radian lineup, repeated with both awards this year. The company’s new Meridian top-end saltwater rods are made with Scott’s most advanced multi-modulus layups. (I’ll let you research ReAct Technology, X-Core, Fiberfuse Resin, and the rest of the marketing terms Scott uses to describe what they’re doing.) The net of it is a series of rods that in Scott’s terms “use recovery speed rather than stiffness to efficiently transfer energy.”
Compared with the midpriced Tidal and last year’s top-end S4s saltwater rods, the Meridians are noticeably stiffer and lighter in hand and offer higher line speeds and even better loop control while still being quite easy to cast inside 30 feet due to the light and flexible tip. That lightness comes from both the blank layup and the components, which include SIC rings in titanium frames, Recoil titanium snake guides, and a reel seat that’s anodized to mil-spec level 3 in a nonglare flat black with self-indexing slide hoods and visible line weight engraving. I had a chance to fish a prototype 11-weight in Baja in May and wanted to take it home. Four-piece Meridians are offered in lengths from 8 feet 4 inches (for line weights 8 and 10) and 9 feet for line weights 6 through 12. There’s also a three-piece 14-weight at 8 feet 4 inches.
Scott is also building 8-foot 10-inch Meridian models in line weights 8 through 12 in two-piece configuration, which struck me as curious. For the last few years, a couple of rod manufacturers, have been offering one-piece saltwater models. The idea was that guides who store rods on a boat or folks who have angling homes and thus no need to transport rods could take advantage of the continuous taper and potentially superior action of a one-piece rod. That’s a pretty limited market, and Scott president Jim Bartschi explained the reasoning behind the 2-piece Meridians: “two-piece rods are just as durable as one-piece rods and are actually practical to transport and ship. Today’s low-mass slim-sleeve ferrules come very close to approximating a continuous taper, so the impact of one ferrule in the rod is pretty negligible.” Rods frequently fail above ferrules, and I like the idea of a beefy saltwater rod that doesn’t have one right above your upper hand when fighting a fish. It will be interesting to see if these rods catch on. All 15 Meridian models are priced at $865.
Finally, Temple Fork Outfitters has introduced the Mangrove series for 2016, designed with input from Florida angling guru Flip Pallot. Mangroves are fast-action four-piece rods, 9 feet in length, meant to be all-around presentation rods in the 20-foot and beyond range. They’re offered in line weights from 4 through 12 and use TFO’s proprietary TiCr coating for a more durable surface on the blank, which is a non-glare chestnut color. Stripping guides are the company’s lightweight Tactical Guides, which have superhard-chrome anodized stainless steel inserts pressed into a machined, hard-anodized, stainless steel frame for durability in both fresh and salt water. Reel seats are all-metal uplocking models with hook-keeper slots cleverly integrated into the back of the fixed hood. The grips are full Wells with an interesting line-weight-recognition feature. The bands of composite rubber around the top of the cork grip tell you the line weight: thick bands represent five and thin bands represent one. So if the grip shows two thick bands and a thin one, you’ve got an 11-weight rod. One thick and two thins, and it’s a 7-weight. Slick. From $259.95 to $299.95, depending on the model.
So much for new rods. Over the next couple of issues, we’ll take a look at new reels, lines, waders, and other necessities. But while you’re thinking about what’s new, consider also that the introduction of new products means there should be some bargains out there as dealers blow out last year’s products. Shop ’til you drop.
