{"id":3275,"date":"2014-06-12T16:15:04","date_gmt":"2014-06-12T20:15:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/?p=3275"},"modified":"2014-06-12T16:57:33","modified_gmt":"2014-06-12T20:57:33","slug":"3275","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/2014\/06\/12\/3275\/","title":{"rendered":"Sage SALT Field Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"unnamed\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Sage took the wraps off their new line of saltwater sticks, the SALT, today. \u00a0You can read their press release<\/a>\u00a0here.<\/p>\n

Basically, this is a progressive update to Sage’s longstanding cobalt blue saltwater series, dating back to the RPLXi. \u00a0Since then we’ve gone through the Xi2, the Xi3, and now the SALT. \u00a0I’ve cast all of these rods in a casting pond\/exhibit environment, but the SALT is the first I’ve actually fished in saltwater.<\/p>\n

To my hand, the biggest transition in this series happened between the RPLXi and the Xi2. \u00a0That was when Sage cut the greatest amount of swing weight and fundamentally made this a good casting stick as well as a great lifting rod. \u00a0I still feel that lifting and fighting fish is the primary goal of this line of rods. \u00a0We had both Method Elite and SALT rods at our disposal in Mexico. \u00a0For sticking casts into a stiff wind with burly permit flies, I’d prefer the Method. \u00a0But you also have to actually fight the fish, and when it comes to that, I am not sure there’s a stronger rod anywhere than the SALT.<\/p>\n

I had the opportunity to fight permit, bonefish, and medium to large crevalle jacks on the SALT. \u00a0Especially with the jacks, I really put the screws to them. \u00a0I appreciated the SALT’s substantial ass; you could lift the rod to about forty five degrees, which with jacks feels\u00a0about like pulling a tractor uphill with a jump rope, then reel down on them with authority.<\/p>\n

From a casting perspective this rod will be very similar to the Xi2s and Xi3s most of us are familiar with. \u00a080 to 90 foot fishing casts are easily in play. \u00a0If you want to try your luck in a casting tournament, the Method is still the stick for you. \u00a0As with all Sage rods the fit and finish are best in class and as good as anyone’s out there. \u00a0You won’t find better cork, reel seat accessories, or epoxy work on any other rod (in fairness, most top end manufacturers use the same suppliers for their grips). \u00a0Sage eschewed the trend toward flexible line guides and stuck with the standard\u00a0hard chrome snake guides. \u00a0I am totally fine with that; so far I haven’t had a single occasion where I felt the RECoil guides used by several manufacturers served any purpose. However, some manufacturers I have spoken with do note that old-school chrome guides can eventually wear down, especially when used with lots of textured lines in a dirty environment.<\/p>\n

This rod will be the gold standard series for saltwater anglers for the next few years. \u00a0It is a worthy, albeit somewhat foreseeable, update to the Xi line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sage took the wraps off their new line of saltwater sticks, the SALT, today. \u00a0You can read their press release\u00a0here. Basically, this is a progressive update to Sage’s longstanding cobalt blue saltwater series, dating back to the RPLXi. \u00a0Since then we’ve gone through the Xi2, the Xi3, and now the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3276,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gear-reviews","column","onecol","has-thumbnail"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/files\/2014\/06\/unnamed.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3275"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3289,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3275\/revisions\/3289"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}