The 2013 Sage CIRCA Fly Rod

Jerry Siem was comparing the new Sage CIRCA fly rod blank with an old fiberglass rod as he helped shoot the video “trailer” for the new rod earlier this year.  “The remarkable thing,” he said to us in Reno, “was that this thin, light new rod had the same deflection [bending characteristics] as that old old, thick and heavy glass rod.”

We spent more than 15 minutes with the new “slow-action” rod on the casting pond, and we were very impressed how precise it felt.  Whether this has to do with blank construction that produces less “wobble” in the tip or is related more to the lightness of the rod, we’re not sure, but the rod is very pleasurable to cast.   Probably most impressive was it’s ability to gently place a fly on the surface.  Sage seems to have taken some of the best aspects of modern technology—material lightness and responsiveness—and combined it with the pleasure we get from casting bamboo and even glass rods of yore.

Here’s what MidCurrent gear editor and Angling Trade editor Tim Romano reported from the show:

“I want to circle back to the Circa rods, because I was speaking with Marshall Cutchin, publisher of MidCurrent, today at lunch, and he said that his time spent casting one of the new slow-action Circa fly rods by Sage at the IFTD casting pond justified one of his days (expense) for being here in Reno in the first place.

So I took it to the pond myself.  And it is all that.  Mind you, it is billed as slow in action, and it is exactly that.  Fast rods cover casting flaws in my mind, so those who have the stroke, will appreciate this rod no end.  Especially when you factor in the thin profile/diameter and lightness in hand, it’s definitely a ‘feel’ rod that I can imagine would be loads of fun to fish on most trout rivers.  It isn’t a dainty rod by any means… it just reconnects many of us with the kind of action we learned to cast in the first place.  And I think that’s an attribute, in and of itself.  The 589-4 model retails for $775.”