There's a reason that Sage is one of the industry's biggest and most heralded rod makers. Since it's founding in 1980 by rod designer Don Green, Sage has been producing some of the best and most innovative rods on the market. Rod series like Sage's RPL have achieved near mythical status in the memories of anglers, and the pedigree of Sage's flagship rods breeds an anticipation regarding what's next that is perhaps unmatched elsewhere in the industry. Today, Sage answered that question of what's next by introducing the Sage X, it's latest flagship offering.

The rod designs of founder Green and, over the last couple of decades now chief-designer Jerry Siem, have deservedly taken much of the credit for the rods that Sage has produced over the better part of the last four decades. But these days, innovation at Sage may be as much about materials as it is about any other aspect of rod design. In fact, it may always have been. Thanks to Sage's close ties with the aerospace industry (think nearby Seattle stalwart Boeing), Sage has access to some of the most cutting edge materials. Those relationships and the work of the engineers in the lab at Sage's Bainbridge Island headquarters, who spend their days experimenting with graphite and resins and testing their creations on Instron machines and the casting pond behind the factory, have produced materials like Sage's Graphite III, G5, Konnetic and most recently, KonneticHD.

That latest material, KonneticHD, is the driver behind Siem's design for Sage's brand-new X, which derives its name from the fact that it is Sage's tenth flagship series of rods.

According to Sage, the "new taper delivers greater blank recovery and a crisper tip-top, allowing anglers to dig deeper into the rod and access more of the lower sections of the blank, shifting power closer to the angler. Decreased lateral and medial movement and vibrations in the blank also result in more accurate and efficient presentations refining the synergy between angler, rod, line, and fly."

The new Sage X.

“By optimizing our graphite-to-resin ratio, we’ve created a higher density (HD) fiber composite resulting in lighter, stronger blanks to deliver unmatched recovery, energy transfer, and line/loop control,” said Sage chief rod designer Jerry Siem.

Aesthetics on the X's blanks are a handsome dark green, that Sage has termed 'black spruce', and which appears nearly black until the blank is out in the sun. Along for the ride are the expected high-end rod accoutrements such as ceramic Fuji stripping guides and Flor grade cork.

The new X series includes freshwater models ranging from weights 3 to 6, saltwater models from weights 5 to 10, switch models from weights 6 to 8 weight and spey models from weights 6 to 10. Retail pricing on the single hand rods will be $895, switch models will go for $995 and spey models will sell for $1050.

BUY THE SAGE X (via Sage)