Food for thought.

I've just bought a lap top, through work. All mod cons, up to date etc etc. Hundreds of thousands of hours of R&D, incredibly sophisticated testing of both hardware and software and so on. Functionality that I will never understand and astonishing computing power (given what was available a decade ago).

Why is it cheaper than 9'6 of carbon fibre rolled into a tube with 'Sage' printed on the side (insert brand of choice)? Or 3 oz of aluminium arranged in a really very simple way? Both of which rely on technology that was old when floppy discs went extinct.

The mark-up on much fly equipment must be absolutely staggering. Could we, as consumers, effectively go on strike, and simply refuse to buy anything until they brought the price down? Come on folks - use the logic of collective bargaining to get cheaper gear!

Just a late afternoon daydream...

Matt,

If you look into it I expect you will find that a considerable amount of R & D goes into the development of a new rod as well. Companies spend millions researching and developing new adhesives for example. Why? Humans have made glue for hundreds if not thousands of years, so why do we need a new one? Your laptop is benefitting from the R&D done years ago, not last month, and anything that comes along later is just tweaking and upgrading rather than the total new development. Also the company who made it will sell millions of them rather than the thousands of rods by Sage, Loomis or whoever. Economies of scale. When laptops first came out they cost thousands of pounds; now they cost a few hundred. Economies of scale again.

I agree with what you say about economies of scale ect
I do believe that a lot of the cost of a Sage/Loomis/Orvis/Hardy rod is for the "name"
I have a couple of sage's a XP and RPL which are not 5 times better than my Wychwood truefly, my go to river rod.Wychwood too must have economies of scale and R.D. Sub £100 rods are now better than they ever were. I dont think I would ever buy another Sage or Hardy.

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BROWN TROUT:THE RED SPOTS HAND PAINTED BY GOD

The thing i cant get my head around with sage rods is if they are supposed to be one of the best make of rods around how come theres always so many for sale on here or ebay. Surely a "great" rod is worth keeping.
Just my opinion, probably because i cant afford one.

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“Where the footprints end the fishing begins”

You are right. Finding a decent Sage XP is pretty hard these days. One of the best rods ever made, shame they were discontinued.

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Casting At Shadows - Christmas Island Fly Fishing DVD

I could be wrong here but I think a great deal of the fly companies high prices is basically because they can get away with it and we as the consumer pay for it....Fly fishing used to be far more restricted to the upper/rich classes and was priced accordingly and the prices still reflect this.....For example I have spent a great deal of my life specimen angling and I have used rods with the latest carbons and graphites, top of the range cork handles, Fuji Sic throughout the whole rod, alloy or carbon reel seats's and beautifully finished and you would be hard pressed to pay more than £300 delivered..Yet as mentioned a couple of ounces of carbon with a top rod companies logo on will cost between approx £500-£800 quid!!??...I am sure some of the cost is because of the development research regarding the race to make rods lighter and stronger than the competitions but I too struggle with the cost for a couple ounces of carbon and alloy tube, I have however used both cheap and top end fly rods and there is a difference ie the top end rods do feel a bit better but my limited casting skills are not good enough to really feel understand or exploit these qualities of the top end rods so maybe the for the more seasoned caster they offer benefits I yet to discover, saying all this tho I do have a US made Z-Axis(alot cheaper then the UK) and its beatifull and I enjoy using it even though I probably am not using half the rods capabilities....

Cheers

Let me see ... how many businesses / households have a laptop and how many have a Sage fly rod?

I think there's your answer ... volume sales.

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[I]"I still don't know why I fish or why other men fish, except that we like it and it makes us think and feel."[/I] Roderick L Haig-Brown

[url]www.wildfly.net[/url]

[url]http://www.gameanglinginstructors.co.uk/[/url]

Exactly.

Johan

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Johan Janssens

I fully understand that arguement but i still cant square this in my head. At the best part of £1200 is a loomis NRX. A more than adequate Airfo Delta at £150 or even a Mckenzie at around £600. Someone is extracting the urine.
I had a wee shot of the NRX nice, but never twelve hundred quid nice.

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BROWN TROUT:THE RED SPOTS HAND PAINTED BY GOD

I don't think volume sales is the whole answer. I'd be surprised if the chinese factories couldn't easily gear up to produce twenty times as many Hardy rods that could be sold at half the current price. It's about marketing/product positioning and recognition and maximising revenue. A bit like claret - how many people really appreciate the difference between Ch. Petrus at £4665 a case and Ch. Batailley at £384? Two or three years ago you could buy Batailley for around £160 - is it now twice as good? It boils down to market forces and in the non-essential goods market these are governed by perception and perception is governed largely by influential commentators (in the case of Bataillley that annoying Robert Parker gave it a rating that altered market perrception, immediately attracted the Asian market and put the wine out of my reach ) . We're almost talking about Giffin goods - the ones that sell more the more expensive they are.

How many commentators/reviewers reflect the average, or even better than average, angler's abilities? It's usually not their role.

Most of us have a touch of the tackle tart, we would like to own 'the best'. However, one of the things I like about this forum is that there is an air of realism: people like steveow who are prepared to admit they are happy with a modestly priced rod, but also that they love having a top end piece of kit, and those who will provide enough pragmatic information for the inexperienced to judge what best suits their pocket without a hint of the 'it's not worth getting anything less than a Loomis or sintrix' attitude.

(Of course there are works of art like a recently featured bamboo rod, but that's a different matter entirely).