Sage Trout LL rod & Trout reel designed for dry fly fishers
In recent years, most fly rod designers have focused on stiffer, faster, more powerful casting rods. This season, though, Sage engineers took a step back to address the needs of the traditional dry fly anglers who pursue trout.
The Sage Trout LL rod series features a true medium-action build to slow down the casting stroke for the better, gentler presentation of dry flies. The Trout LL 9-foot, 5-wt (model #590-4) proved itself ideally suited to big western rivers where powerful rainbows, browns, and cutthroat slurp everything from tiny midges to heavy hoppers and salmon flies. The rod features a firm butt section, with good mid-flex for casting power. The rod was able to throw plenty of line – 30 to 45 feet – with good accuracy without a great deal of effort. Caster with better-than-average skills can toss flies 50-60 feet when needed.
The Trout LL’s light tip section provides good protection to delicate tippets when fighting hooked fish, while still sporting enough strength to lift fish to the net. The combination of good mid-flex in a medium action rod, with a forgiving tip section, consistently allows delicate placement of dry flies. In terms of gentle fly control, the Trout LL comes close to the performance of the slow, ultra-gentle action of Sage’s Circa rod– a true specialist in tiny dry fly fishing.
The Trout LL employs Sage’s outstanding Konnetic HD technology, which is engineered to the graphite-to-resin ratio to create an incredibly strong yet lightweight fiber composite material. When deployed into rod construction, this composite has consistently proven to deliver excellent power transfer and fast recovery times. That translates into longer, more efficient casts with less energy expended. The Trout LL exhibits these properties perfectly, making this one of the farthest casting, and most accurate, medium-action rods our test team members have ever experienced. Whether casting midges or big foam bugs, the Trout LL handles any task asked of it with ease and exceptional performance.
To complement the Trout LL’s performance, Sage also introduced a new reel, the Trout. Knowing that many dry fly purists are traditionalists at heart, Sage engineers designed the Trout Reel to resemble one of the brand’s classic reels, the old 500 series. The reel body is solid, with concentric rings of venting holes. The throw-back style, though, ends at the aesthetics. The new Trout sports a finely tuned sealed carbon system drag that proved itself capable of handling the demands of fighting big, deep-diving browns as well as the aerial antics of fast-water rainbows.
Built from anodized machined aluminum bar stock, the Trout reel features a concave large arbor – the concave design provides added strength and durability, while the large diameter makes line retrieval fast and efficient.
The Sage Trout LL is available in 7 models, from 3-wt to 6-wt in a variety of lengths. The Sage Trout reel is offered in two colors and three sizes: 2/3/4 wt, 4/5/6 wt, and 6/7/8 wt. The Trout LL 590-4 we tested sells for $800 while the Trout 4/5/6 in Bronze sells for $375. Buy now – Rod; Buy now – Reel.
