My worst experience so far happened last month. I had a customer send me a brand new Sage Xi3 and a Struble U-21 reel seat with matching fighting butt to install on the brand new never been lined up, cast, or fished $750 Sage rod. The reel seat is solid titanium and with the fighting butt retails for over $160 all by itself. I swap everything out and send it back. He can’t mount a reel on the rod. Any reel. Now, I use a reel mounted in the seat to align things when I glue the seat on a rod. The reel I used was an old one but mounted up without undue problems. I have him send the rod back with the reel he is trying to mount. Sure enough. It won’t go. I tried 3 or 4 reels and the only one I could mount was the one I had used to line things up. I removed the new seat and called Struble. Before shipping it back, I did a ton of measurements of reel feet, and this seat along with a couple of other seats I had on hand. The U-21 was nowhere close as far as room in the hood or slide. To top it off, the body was short, too. I sent the whole works back to Struble.
As it turns out, the CNC machine had been setup wrong. They sent me a new seat and butt which I assembled and mounted his reel and any other reel I could get my hands on to be sure it was going to work before mounting the seat. Struble had machined a new seat for me that was top notch.
While everything worked out and I was taken care of to my satisfaction, it shouldn’t have happened with a high end seat like that. Will I buy Struble seats again? Absolutely. This was handled with true concern and professionalism. Poop happens but given the chance most companies will fix it.
I love all my sage rods, they are lovely to use, but the Cork is frankly rubbish, the Z-axis has more filler than cork! I still would not swap them for anything else, the actions are good for my casting and they are just a pleasure to use.
All the best.
Mike
I’m with Lotech on this one. I don’t think I have any ‘high-end’ gear. Mine are all Scientific Anglers, Shakespeare, Phleuger, and 1 old Martin set-up. I have even have a wind up Martin ‘automatic’ fly reel, and actually fish with it sometimes.
And the really awful part is that I’m not really ashamed…hey, they catch fish. What can I say?
I have never fished for big or fast fish so I don’t know about the rate of failure in any reels. With that being said, I’m sorry if I opened a can of worms (box of flies) by trying to compare cheap stuff with high end gear.
Not at all. I am sure the high-end is a dream to fish with, and it gives us something to aspire to. It could be that someday, I will treat myself to a nice Sage Rod, when I think I have earned it. Of course, I am sure that I can’t cast good enough to get the most out of that level of gear, but as I said, it is something to aspire to. In the meantime, I still get to fly fish. There is equipment available in everyone’s price range.
What I would really like to know is the incidence of failure for high-end gear compared to the incidence of failure of more modest equipment, such as Scientific Anglers, Martin, Shakespeare, etc… Is the high-end stuff really worth the extra money for anything other than the satisfaction of owning it (which I am sure is considerable in it’s own right)? That would be a cool study. Do you reckon I could get a grant for that? (LOL)
I guess I am curious because I have never had any fly gear fail (except for breaking an old bamboo rod at the Tennessee Gathering 2 years ago, but that would’ve been considered abuse…falling on your rod does not constitute a failure of the rod…). I still have my old South Bend Fly Combo that I bought when I was a teenager, and I still fish with it, after 40 years. It was my first fly rod. Every broken piece of fly gear I have ever had was due to abuse (ceiling fans, run over with the car, etc…).
I see bunches of broken rods. I would imagine that things are skewed a bit due to idiot proof warranties on most of the high end gear, but it is still amazing the number of higher end rods I see for repair. I hear what was done to the rod and how it was broken. I see a few tip sections broken from big fish but the vast majority are abuse. I tend to discount the big fish stories because, well… it is a fisherman bringing me the rod.
All in all, I think the lower priced rods hold up just as well as the high end ones. The $40 reel that Bass Pro Shop sells is a good little reel if not as pretty as some of the higher end ones. I have a friend that sells some very nice looking CNC machined reels out of China that are almost bullet proof and have a great nylon disk drag at under a c-note! Quality does not have to be expensive.
