The Sage Circa 4 Weight Review

The Sage Circa 4 Weight Review - By George Revel

I want to premise this with the fact that I am very critical of fly rods. I don’t believe in buying a new rod because there is a newer version out, but rather fishing the great rods whenever they were made. Now, I have to admit there was a time in my life where I was caught up in fast rods that were capable of great feats of casting. 15 years later my taste in fly rods has developed to appreciate the fish fighting capabilities of softer action rods. Think about it; How is a fast action rod (or stiff rod) going to act as a dampening tool when fighting fish compared with a softer action fly rod. I had been going through a tough streak landing fish for the past couple of years especially when fishing light tippets. For me that all that changed when I switched to the Sage Circa.

The Sage Circa blends beautifully the casting and fish fighting needs of technical dry fishing.

Click here to buy the Sage Circa 4 weight.

The Sage Circa 4wt is the best light tippet dry fly rod made.

A bold statement, yes. I am writing this review have just spent the past 4 weeks fishing this rod all over California and Montana. Rarely do I come across a product that makes fishing legitimately more enjoyable.

Week 1 Eastern Sierra - The East Walker River. Memorial day weekend 10 of us went over to Bridgeport for 4 days of fishing, camping,, drinking, and food. I must say we did it right. Meals ranged from bacon and egg sandwiches in the morning to a 5.5lb porterhouse in the evening. Even a drunken concoction called the Flambinkie (A Twinkie fired in the grease of a 5.5lb porterhouse soaked and flambeed in Jim Bean with a chocolate marshmallow garnish) was invented… Mixed reviews on the Flambinkie.  Back to the rod…  We booked out Scerine Ranch in Nevada which offers several private miles of the E. Walker. The Water was low and the fish were spooky. I fished a dry dropper rig to spooky fishing shallow water. Size 22 and 24 nymphs on 6x are what it took to get these fish. The Sage Circa delivered the size 10 Chubby Chernobyl I was using as my top fly beautifully. I landed fish up to 17 inches with ease. The tip was perfectly soft to protect the tippet while the but offered plenty of beef to land larger trout. A few photo’s from this trip. 

Week 2 Montana - Nelson’s Spring Creek. The very next weekend we flew into Bozeman where I had a few meetings with Simms and Bozeman Reel Company. Nelsons Spring Creek is about 45 minutes out of Bozeman and offers an incredible fishing experience especially when the river are blown out like they are now. To fool the big fish here it took 9ft 7x Rio Suppleflex Trout Leader with a size 24 Midge tied to the back of 22 CDC Ant. Not only that is took a perfect presentation. The Circa kicked ass all the way through the perfectly still morning to the windy afternoon.

Week 3 Northern Ca : The McCloud River - Oh man one of my favorite places in the world. We hit it right! hatches galore - Golden Stones, Salmon Flies, PMDs, Green Drakes, BWO, and more. If I wasn’t fishing dries or a dry dropper rig; I was swinging a Tungsten Bead Red Squirrel followed with a smaller soft hackle. Holy smokes do these fish fight hard! There is no other rod I would have rather had with me.

Week 4 the North Fork of Yuba : Every year I take 20 people to the North Fork of the Yuba River as Part 2 of a Class I teach through Golden Gate Angling and Casting Club. This killer stream has tons of eager trout that will jump at dries and is perfect for beginning anglers. The Sage Circa, no surprise, kicked ass fishing the pocket water of the North Fork Yuba River.

I now own this rod and am excited to take it out on the Fall River in the 1st week of July for the Hex hatch and to the Bitteroot Valley in Montana the 2nd week of August.

Price: $850 Click here to buy the Sage Circa 4 weight.