Douglas Upstream

Oops, I forgot to mention the rod called Upstream from Douglas Outdoors in my previous posting about my 4 weight rods. Well, only because the ones I mentioned were all 9ft rods while the Douglas Upstream 4 weight is just a few inches short at 8.8ft.

I fished the Upstream a couple of hours during a short trip to southern Germany this past weekend. The weather was glorious after several rainy days. The river was slightly higher than I wished, but hey I finally got to fish the Upstream!

I really loved the smooth medium action of the rod on the lawn. Loads of feel on even the shortest casts. So much the opposite of all the fast rods that has been flooding the market the past years.

On the water it proved to be a smooth casting and fishing rod too. Fishing a hopper dropper rig as well as a double nymph rig was no problem for this ultra light (weighing a mere 1.7 Oz!) rod. Hope to fish it more extensively during my coming fishing trip in september.

The three musketeers

The nice weather inspired me to have a look at my 9ft 4 weight rods (yes, I love 4 weight rods!). The three musketeers are the G. Loomis 490-4 IMX, Sage 490-4 RPL and the Sage 490-4 LL. All three from the same era of fly fishing history.

The fast graphite rods as we know today began in the end 1980's with the introduction of high modulus graphites developed by the aircraft companies like Boeing.

G. Loomis introduced in 1987 the IMX graphite and the rods with the same name. Sage (originally started as the Winslow Manufacturing Co.) introduced in 1989 Graphite III with the legendary Sage RPL series. These days we might even call these rods medium-fast action rods as rods have become faster and stiffer.

The RPL (Reserve Power Light) series were manufactured for quite a long time. Starting from 1989 and discontinued in 1997. The blank reincarnated in 1997 as a budget rod series called the VPS. In 1987 the LL (Light Line) series started as rods using a slightly lower modulus graphite called Graphite II. In 1989 the LL rod series (discontinued 1999) were also built with the new Graphite III.


Update March 2019:
I sold the Sage 490-4 RPL