Hi folks. I thought maybe I had better jump in here and try and clear a few things up. First of all, a bit about my history with Sage Gear. As many of you already know, I was the Product Manager for Sage Gear from 2006 through 2008. It was my job to introduce a factory built rod where only blanks had existed previously. As Sage had never entered this market before, we took a very cautious approach and only built the models that had a solid track record. That being said, it was felt that a few changes were in order. One was the screen printing that went away from the GSH.... designation and replaced it with "Sage Gear" CT..., CP..., SA..., & SP... The other major change was the color. And yes, please for the thousandth time, it was just a color change. I was physically there. For example, a brown 290 in GIII would now be a CT290F. A brown 2106 in GI would now be a CT2106. In other words, anything GIII got a "F" tagged on at the end. Anything GI just had the number. All blanks come out of the oven grey and then color is applied. The color has nothing to do whatsoever with the type of graphite. To further emphasize this point, the reason I won't have all my blanks sooner than May is because Sage needs to aquire more GI material for my order. I'm not sure who was answering calls on this at Sage but to be honest with you, there's probably only a few people there that know what I just told you. Sage is a fly rod company first and foremost (the very best in my opinion!) and this project that I have going to ressurect Gear is not on very many people's radar.

The other point I would like to clarify is just exactly what I am doing with Gear. I have entered an agreement with Sage to have them produce a large run of Gear blanks. I will be building these rods in my shop here in BC. I will be selling them through a select (around 10 so far) group of Sage retail outlets strictly on a wholesale basis. I will be handling the warranty on these going forward.It will be a similar system to that of Sage. The good part of this is going to be the ability to address different markets with different builds. I'm fully aware that a lot of anglers in WA would prefer a different guide package on the 286,386,290,390. Lighter frame, maybe Fuji, etc. I'm also aware that trying to please everyone with one centerpin configuration is impossible. With this new set-up, I will be able to work with my stores and fill a lot more niches than we could at Sage. I will also be offering complete custom work through the stores. Stay tuned for more on this. One last thing, although I am up in BC (or down for you AK anglers), I have started talking with a store in WA - Ted's - and it looks like we should be able to get something put together in the near future.

That's it for now. I really appreciate the interest in Sage Gear and am anxious to bring it back better than ever! Hopefully I have been able to clear up a few things here but I'm sure I haven't heard the last of the Brown vs Green debate. Maybe I should just get Sage to make a few brown ones. Hmmm........

Brian