yak

i suspect my logic is bang on and thus needs to be ignored

wow booked solid for an entire season. Im guessing that is about 100-130 days on the water (6 month season on the bow)at about $500 a pop. you estimated that for each day trip that the angler pony up $30 for flies,$50 to cover your taxes/business expenses, $25 for your lunch,and another $100 for all the equipment you have had to buy(whether he uses it or not). thats $205 over 100-130 days for a total of $21,000-$26500(that is in a single season) for all the "expenses" you listed. This is your estimate for just a single year so I assume you need to replace all your rods and boat every year. If you dont need to replace $25,000 worth of equipment a year that hourly rate you came up with sure goes up.

$500 for 2 guys to float the bow vs $500 for one guy to walk and wade. that in a nutshell is the problem. totally different level of service yet the same price tag?

I understand that but the last cab i took didnt require me to by lunch for the driver and pay for the set of winter tires he had in storage. my point is that for a simple walk and wade in the city where i supply my own gear,flies and sandwiches/water, a price tag of $500 is way too much. trying to justify the price by listing expenses the original poster likley wasnt interested in is irrelevant. about 4 years ago,I spent $150 for a walk and wade(was a spring special) with a very well known guide on this site. i got myself to and from our meeting point and supplied my own gear and lunch. He supplied his time/expertise and a about 10 flies (real high end wire worms lol). we spent about 6 hours on the water ( that was enough for me) and taught me more in that day than I would have learned on my own in 5 years. this was well worth the money. had he insisted on charging what others deem to be the "necessary" amount of $500 it wouldnt have happened ( even with the champagne and caviar lunch). perhaps guides need to offer more options with regards to what is supplied and what isnt in order to make the prices a little more pallatable.

wow, what a ray of sunshine you are. cant imagine why guys arent lined up to fork over $500 to spend 10 hours on the river with you. ps. if hes already in calgary why is it $50 for travel costs. also, wtf is on the menu that Im paying $50 for lunch ( not sure why i would have to pay for yours as well). if i bring my own rod/reel/ etc, why am i paying $100 for the gear you have in your trunk or the drift boat you have back in the garage. I too think $500 for a walk and wade on a river in the middle of the city with easy access points and multitudes of willing fish is a tad excessive (great company aside).

2 decades (20 years lol. you must think us a dimwitted lot bhurt.

amazing the difference in sink rate when you use tungsten.

i was on the smokey 2 years ago in late august early september and had a ton of fun with mid sized foam hoppers.

I have a mark on my rod that I measured at approx 19 inches. any fish that looks measureable, i just lay against my rod while still in the water. gives me a fairly accurate measurement without stressing fish or too much screwing around. I dont need exact lenght (18.656666788 inches), just like to know if a fish is pushing the 20 inch mark(that has become my barometer for "big fish" on the streams i like to frequent).

using metric Brian? Im guessing bhurt(mm) is too

another big fish http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/living/20...cord.trout.wwtv

snapping a tilley hat in half? that would be a neat trick. do you have to wet it down and freeze it first?

i will take a dozen in brown/white or black/white Karl. nice looking streamer

try a website called VRBO(vacation rentals by owner). We have used them for a couple of boys golfing weekends and stayed in beautiful houses ( sleep 8 no problem) at both grey wolf in panorama and riverside in fairmont. these homes were 2500-3000 sq.foot places with ample bedrooms/pull outs for all.

if it wasnt discontinued then you likely paid more than that (my understanding is that sage doesnt allow retailers to put their current top of line rods on sale). my point is all makers rip you off but you can get around that by purchasing discontinued lines.wait a year or so and the $850 Zs will be selling for $350-400 as well. ps. prefer the caddy but would buy one that was a year old and save myself 30 percent

did you pay full price for the xp when it was the latest sage line or pick it for $350 when they discontinued the XP and came out with the z axis line? at $325-350 ( what I paid for my 2 XPs) I agree that they are worth every penny.

brian, how can that be when sage is using much more expensive materials ( at least i assume they do as apparently there is very little markup on their $800 rods)

great fly fishing in russia and cuba lol. dont mind markup, just seems naive to think it hasnt effected our sport. I too have few hobbies outside golf and FF so like to have quality gear. Im just happeir when i pay 50 percent of the cost because the clubs/rods i buy are one year removed from the latest line offered by the manafacturer of choice. Nyet to z axis,Dah to xp

I have watched low handicappers play great shots with poor equipment and high handicappers butcher the course with $3000 worth of clubs.The hacker still enjoys the sport but obviuosly isnt getting anything extra by paying a premium for his clubs. IMO, a good flyfisherman with a walmart special will outfish an average angler with a $1000 sage. If the price of the rod ( or the driver) enhances the experience for you then it is worth the cost, but think how good a day it would be if you got your $1000 dream rod for half price. I personally try to juggle quality with price by waiting for the deals that are out there. again, each to his own

The world is a big mean place when it comes to gettting the most bang for ones buck and getting a good deal. i guess we are just very lucky that fly rod makers (unlike almost every other business out there) dont need to make a big markup on their products and put the customer before the bottom line l. We are even more fortuante they are willing to take a 50 percent loss on products when they have outdated a line or series even though they must have to sell a hell of a lot of z axis rods to make up the difference ( especailly when they apparently barely cover their cost in the first place ). Perhaps my pessimism is unwarranted. sunshine and lollipops

thats about what I would approximate as well. I figured the xps i purchased at $350 were roughly at cost for sage

I believe the price has been "set" by all the manafactureers such that they all make a very good markup. Bad business for anyone to undercut and undercut prices. IMO, all the companies are ripping us if with regard to what it actually costs to make these rods compared to what they charge Joe average to buy them.As drake has pointed out ,prettty much every consumer item has this type of markup so there is little one can do except to take advantage of the loophole these companies provide when they discontinue lines and sell them for half the original cost.I have tried a z axis and for myself ( I am a fairly new to the sport with only 8 years invested) there was little difference between it an the XPs i use. Certainly not enough of a differnce to justify the $500 difference between what i paid for the XPs and what they are asking for the Z ( again this is just for myself). I am not trying to slag any company or anyone who is willing to pony up the $1000 to buy their favorite high end rod, just trying to give the original poster an option should he choose to wait on his purchase.

Call me skeptical, but I still dont believe these companies are taking a loss on the old line and dont believe they are not making a big markup on the new line as well. While not involed in the rod building industry, I am familair with markups on consumer products in general and would be very surprised if the $800 z is costing them more than 2 or 3 hundred to produce. I realize there are other costs as well ( marketing,R and D etc, ) but they still make a big chunk on every rod they sell. lol, agree with the golf equipment. While I dont generally buy used , I play Taylor made clubs ( like most guys my equipment is better than my swing ) and always wait for them to outdate a current line ( usually every 3-4 years) and then buy the old line for half price. The new line has minor differences at best ( much like fly rods IMO), so for half price I essentially play the same technology.

lol, well dont buy that but regardless, i will wait for the new xyzpz axis to come out and then buy my zs for $350. reminds of a famous PT Barnum quote....

why is then that these rods are worth half price as soon as the next line is introduced. did sage take a $300 loss on all the XPs once they started selling the zs? I agree that the guy trying to sell them out of a specialty flyfishing store isnt geting rich or gouging the consumer but you cant tell me that sage isnt making a bundle on every z axis they sell. Are the materials sage uses in the z axis that much superior to the TFO line to justify athe 500-600 dollar difference or are they merely duping the consumer with the name on the rod? I am extremely happy with the 2 xps i have but Im even more pleased that i waited to purchase them for half price when the zs came out. i expect if a guy is patient the zs will also be half price once sage introdcues their next "inovation" to the flyfishing world