Maybe it's just my age, but every time I see the word Mod I instantly think of Quadrophenia. Luckily you don't have to ride a tricked out Vespa to own this rod or I'd be in some trouble. Sage bills this rod as a MODerate action (see what they did there?) that fits in between the slow Circa and fast One. Being an owner of each of those I'd have to agree, but just because you like the Circa or the One doesn't mean you won't like the Mod. I like the Circa for smaller cutthroat streams where you don't have to bomb casts out and generally use it to cast a single dry fly. The One is my go to rod for larger water where wind may be an issue and I'm more likely to cast larger and heavier rigs like a weighted streamer or multiple nymphs under an indicator.So where does the Mod come in? I've used it on cutthroat streams when it got windy enough that the Circa couldn't handle it and on larger water when I'm just casting one or two lighter flies. It'll cast a weighted streamer, but that definitely isn't its strong suit and you may find yourself working harder.
Unfortunately I think a lot of people aren't going to like this rod when they try it out in the fly shop parking lot. Why would that be? Well, like the Circa this rod works best with a true to weight (AFTMA standard) line. I've found that the demo lines most fly shops have are overweighted like a Rio Grand because of all the faster action rods out there. Luckily I already have some 5wt lines spooled up so I tried those with the Mod before I bought it. The lines I tried were the Airflo River and Stream, Rio Trout LT DT, Rio Trout LT WF, Rio Gold, SA VPT, and just for the hell of it an Airflo Xceed which is an overweighted line. As expected the Xceed was terrible on this rod. It isn't a bad line and I love it on my One, but the Mod is slow enough that it doesn't do well with the extra line weight. The Gold was also terrible but I don't care much for this line in general, so that might have had something to do with it. The other lines did well on this rod, but the Trout LT DT ended up being my favourite. Not exactly sure why, but the DT version even seemed to be better on it than the WF version. If I had to rank them I'd say the Trout LT DT was best, followed very closely by the River and Stream, then the Trout LT WF. The VPT is an alright line but I found it works best for single hand spey casting and isn't great as an overhead casting line probably because of the long head.
So one more thing about this rod - the blank colour. I think you're either going to love it or hate it. I'm sure the traditional purists will hate it, but then again they're probably out there waving around cane or glass rods instead of looking at graphite rods. Personally I like the colour since it really pops in pictures.
