reevesr1

What do you base your approximation on? Can you give me an accurate cost structure of their manufacturing facility? Do they own or lease? Depreciation on their manufacturing equipment (ie, old or new)? How about their marketing department? Research and development? Pay structure of management and executives? Number of managers and executive? Inventory in stock? What is their quality program? Rejection rate? How much does it cost to change tooling for a production run? How big are their production runs? Give me another hour and I can come up with a couple of hundred other questions. I don't know the answer to any of them, but have been involved in manufacturing in a previous job. Always heard about how much money we made. Wish they were right. I'd have a bigger house, nicer car, and all the sage rods I can handle. Anyway, this is probably pointless. Everyone rips everyone off and the world is a big mean place. Glad I don't really believe that. Edit: That is retail markup. Has nothing at all to do with the manufacturers markup.

I always found it was best to not set the hook at all. Tightening rotates the hook into place. Once it is there, setting is unnecessary. I've caught many sharks using this method and their mouths are pretty tough. But there is a difference. With most saltwater fish, they are always roaming. So once they pick up the bait or lure they will be moving. When moving away, circle hooks are awesome. When moving towards you, much more of a challenge. With salmon, they probably are not moving much at all. The current on the line would create some tension after pickup on the swing, but probably not enough. so you may want to sweep the rod slowly to set. Not a hookset in the traditional sense. On the dangle, hmm. I would think sweep as well, but my bet is the hookup ratio will suffer more than on the swing. It will take work to overcome your instinct to strike. I've watched lots of people struggle with circle hooks at first, but once you figure it out they can be great.

Not to get into a giant discussion on capitalism, but the system is somewhat self adjusting. If Sage was making immense profits on their rods, then other manufacturers would see these profits and want a piece of the action. There would be more competition (see Orivs, Loop, T&T, etc.), and to establish or maintain market share they will adjust their prices to compete-forcing the most established brand to adjust prices as well. But if you don't believe that, then fine. Maybe I'm wrong. Wouldn't be the first, or last, time.

Well, my bet would be that the amount of snagging would drop very significantly, particularly in fleshy areas like the back. Might still snag some in the fins as the hook could have something to rotate into. Hookup in the mouth would drop as well. Circle hooks are used if you want to eliminate hooking a fish deep. They don't, IMHO, ever increase hookup rate. My dad used to say-if you are fishing for fun use a circle hook. If you are fishing for food, don't.

Depends on how the hook enters their mouth. Circle hooks are designed to hinge on the jaw and rotate into place by the steady application of tension, not by a traditional hook set. They are fantastic live bait hooks for fishermen wishing to minimize hook damage, virtually eliminate gut hooked fish, and hence be able to release a fish caught with bait unharmed. I don't know anything about fishing for pinks, but if they are not holding the fly in their mouth for awhile, I have a hard time seeing circle hooks working. That said, the Moffit system seems to be designed "snag" a fish in a single hook, multi-fly system. How are pinks fished for?

do they take a loss when the next line is introduced? Probably, but my bet is that loss is factored in when the original sale price is set. I would assume they budget for some percentage of the total number of rods manufactured to be in circulation, unsold, when I introduce a new line. Those rods become unsellable at the old price when the new line is introduced, as people will automatically assume the new rod is better. So if they are willing to pay top dollar, they will almost invariably by the newest. So now I have all these rods just sitting there. Is it better to dump them at a price I think I can sell them for and recoup some cost, or just eat them? Easy answer. So part of the sales price of a new rod will be to make up for the planned "obsolesce" (which probably is not exactly the right term) of that line of rods in the future. Edit: Yak, I just saw that you don't believe the above (just saw headscan's post). Really? Since every single product that Sage manufactures (or Orvis, or Taylor Made) will be replaced at some point, and every time there will be some amount of the old line still out there, unsold. You don't think they allow for that in their pricing policies? I sure would, and I know they do too. Edit again: So after the initial burst of cutting edge buyers and early adopters, come the more pragmatic buyers. I am one of them. I will wait for the next generation and buy the old one if I am looking for top quality gear. OR I can wait for the early adopter to get tired of his new toy, see the latest and greatest come out from another manufacturer, then buy the item he is tired of used on eBay. Most of my golf stuff comes to me used. People who are looking to buy game and can't seem to ever do it are my best friends!

If Sage, Orvis, and Taylor Made for that matter were in the business of gouging their customer, they would be out of business. There is too much competition, even for high end rods, for companies to charge outrageous prices and get away with it. I've had friends in both the fishing and golf industries. Neither got rich. The margins are just not that high. If there was nothing but money to be made in the high end rod business, there would be more people doing it. Competition ensures that prices remain reasonable for the quality of the product.

There are more fish pictures than flower pictures. You must be slipping. Nice shots!!

I can't think of Billy Jack without this popping into my head (One Tin Soldier, theme song to the original Billy Jack) Listen, children, to a story That was written long ago, 'Bout a kingdom on a mountain And the valley-folk below. On the mountain was a treasure Buried deep beneath the stone, And the valley-people swore They'd have it for their very own. Go ahead and hate your neighbor, Go ahead and cheat a friend. Do it in the name of Heaven, You can justify it in the end. There won't be any trumpets blowing Come the judgement day, On the bloody morning after.... One tin soldier rides away. So the people of the valley Sent a message up the hill, Asking for the buried treasure, Tons of gold for which they'd kill. Came an answer from the kingdom, "With our brothers we will share All the secrets of our mountain, All the riches buried there." Go ahead and hate your neighbor, Go ahead and cheat a friend. Do it in the name of Heaven, You can justify it in the end. There won't be any trumpets blowing Come the judgement day, On the bloody morning after.... One tin soldier rides away. Now the valley cried with anger, "Mount your horses! Draw your sword!" And they killed the mountain-people, So they won their just reward. Now they stood beside the treasure, On the mountain, dark and red. Turned the stone and looked beneath it... "Peace on Earth" was all it said. Go ahead and hate your neighbor, Go ahead and cheat a friend. Do it in the name of Heaven, You can justify it in the end. There won't be any trumpets blowing Come the judgement day, On the bloody morning after.... One tin soldier rides away. Go ahead and hate your neighbor, Go ahead and cheat a friend. Do it in the name of Heaven, You can justify it in the end. There won't be any trumpets blowing Come the judgement day, On the bloody morning after.... One tin soldier rides away. Stupid Valley People. Always screwing things up for the Mountain People!

Tony, I somewhat agree about "the fear that society manufactures". Though I don't believe it is on purpose. Due to mass communication of all types, we know learn of every bad thing that happens, everywhere, in near real time. Leads us to believe that things are more dangerous than they truly are. That said, it IS different today. I think I'm a bit (or much more than a bit) older than grndrake. We did all the same *hit he did. But I can tell you we would never, ever of dreamed of disobeying/disrespecting adults. If we would have come up on a swimming hole and an adult was there fishing and asked us to wait, we would have waited. Not maybe waited, but absolutely waited. Or gone somewhere else. The consequences at home would have been significant if our parents ever found out we did otherwise. This isn't the kids of today's fault that they don't behave as we did, it is ours. We are the parents and for whatever reason have done a crap job of instilling the values in our kids that were instilled in us. We all have our pet theories as to why this is. I don't think there is one simple reason-the rapid change in society-much of it due to technology-over the last 50 yrs has overwhelmed us. We have been told from multiple sources how to raise our kids. My parents (and generations of parents before them) did it the way they had been taught by their parents, not society or the media (and I don't think the media is a thing-it is the sum of all the information coming at us), so things evolved much, much more slowly. Could be the kids of today will be better people than we were/are. I have no idea. I certainly hope so. I want to say I doubt it, but that is just because I, like most every one of us, think the way we were brought up was the best way. Time will tell. The one thing I know for absolute certainty is that in 30 yrs or so, the generation of today's kids will be complaining about the behavior and lack of values in the next generation of kids. Edit: Oh-and DBT thanks for the salmon egg reference. Got a good chuckle out of that.

Happy birthday buddy! Hope some east slopes are felling you today!

Happy Birthday Rev! You sure you didn't lie on your about me page? I've seen you climb hills and could have swore you were older than me!! Happy Birthday to you to Kerry!

Just took a look, and voted. Michelle was in the lead by 1 vote after I voted, but now 3 votes out of first. Kick in some votes if you can.

Dammit Bones.......the salmon.........need...................to be..........................protected.

Sweet Ryan. Now I can cash in that $100. worth of laptop work from the streamwatch auction without feeling guilty.

You can tell it's old. 3 pages and nobody got pissed off.

No problem with the opinion FHD. And if you want to point out mistakes, that is perfectly fine. My point was that I don't think it should be done while involved in an argument/discussion with someone. Almost invariably, when it is done during an argument, it is being done to belittle the person-not to educate them. Also, we have a vast range of education/experience levels here. What I would expect from a CEO, or any professional correspondence for that matter, is certainly not the same I would expect from a frequenter of a fly fishing website. All that said, looking forward to the temp cooling down, like say September? How is the knee holding up?

BBT wins most timely/sarcastic avatar of all time.

I LOVE to argue. I catch myself arguing points I don't really even agree with just to continue to argue. It's fun and stretches your mind. However, truly arguing on this website has become mostly impossible as it too often degenerates into personal attacks. That could be a function of websites in general, or maybe even society in general now, I don't know. I do however believe anonymity has something to do with it. But I don't think there is any chance of forcing users to give their real names if they do not want to. I think that horse is already out of the barn. Self policing is a good idea. But reality is that ignoring is damn near impossible. Someone always gives in (and too often that someone is me. Don Anderson called me a cuttie once cuz I always rise to the bait, though I'm betting better at refusing. But I always come up and look.) The best idea I've heard so far is the permanent ban. The problem with banning has been that they always come back as someone else. Don't know that there is any way to stop that. IP addresses? Really, if someone exhibits behavior that we would not put up with in the real world, why do we have to put up with it here? If you can't play nice, see ya. And by play nice, I most certainly do not mean you have to agree with anyone else on this board. If you have different views, there is no reason why you cannot present and argue those viewpoints rationally. If you are good at it, you might even change a few minds. And while I'm rambling, can we call a freakin moratorium on commenting on peoples spelling, grammar, etc.? If you ask me, if you are in an argument with someone and you resort to attacking their argument style, spelling, grammar, etc., you make yourself appear small.

Probably worse.

Brad, I think your proposed course of action is perfectly acceptable. I wouldnt have the balls quite frankly. I still think someone should film it!

Hmmm, Smitty with a camera, bbt with a wolf (i hear when a wolf growls people soil themselves. Im just sayin), uber, all 150 lbs of him, with moral support, or bhurt(the ex football coach) with a bad attitude? Im going to have to go with bhurt. I thought of bbt and wolf, but id be afraid of saying somethin mean to bbt and the wolf growling at me. And we all know what would happen then. Actually, im with bbt on this one. Though i find what they are doing underhanded (though they may believe that they do have stream rights), life is WAY too short to confront over this. B and B people need a place to fish too!

Pete, While I think that is a great idea, I dont think that affiliations is really that big of an issue. I may be too much of a capitalist, but in something this size I kinda expect to be marketed to on some level. But I dont think the folks here with ties to companies or guide services are really the ones stirring the pot, so to speak. It would be bad for business.

You have a chance to get together with Dave's mom? Edit: Damn it Smitty. Stop that!!

I'm hijacking the hijack!! When I was an instructor in the Navy's Nuclear power program, we had a hierarchy of trainees: Loser Geek Gaper Drone Loser was the top of the food chain. A geek was well, a geek. A Gaper was someone who walked around in wonderment of the nuclear engineroom with his mouth wide open. A drone followed the gaper around cuz he thought the gaper knew something he didn't.