What Scott Says
“Our team designed and crafted a series of rods to help you get the most from your time on the water-the most success, and the most enjoyment.
Session rods are high-performance hand-crafted fly rods that blend some of our most acclaimed design approaches with our latest materials and technologies.
This combination creates rods that bring together high line speed and exceptional loop control with a light and lively feel in the hand. These traits have become known as Scott’s signature fast with feel action.
It gives the rods a wide bandwidth of performance for fishing at a range of distances, and for using a variety of flies and techniques with the same rod.
Most of all it means having fun on the water and enjoying the rod in your hand.”
“Anyone who has fished Scott freshwater rods in the recent past will immediately recognize our signature ‘fast with feel’ action in Session rods. They share some of the design approaches and materials DNA with some of our most legendary rods. Incorporating some of our newest technologies give these rods their own unique feel and attributes.”
President, Jim Bartschi (friend of the shop, and all around good dude)
What We Say
We’ve been eagerly awaiting the return of a mid-price rod from Scott since the Flex was discontinued. What we got in the Session series is mid-price, but just a small step down from the Scott Centric and other high end rods from Sage and Winston. Read on for our first impressions, and look for an update to this post a little later in the year, once we’ve had some time to take this rod fishing…
“This rod has a really sweet and smooth feel, especially for an angler with a little more deliberate casting pace. The 4-weight is absolutely delightful”
Peter Hylander
In our opinion, “fast action” and “slow action” can really oversimplify a review of a fly rod’s performance. While the Session leans more toward the “fast action” category, we prefer terms like “round flexing” and “big sweet spot”, both of which describe the design and construction of this rod very accurately.
Where does this rod fit in the lineup that we carry? Fly rods at Dragonfly Anglers start around $200 for a very basic entry level rod and range all the way up to $1200, putting the Session squarely in the middle if you’re looking at price only. We’re happy to see a new rod at this price point. There has been a big gap in our lineup, forcing us to compare a $400 rod to a $900 rod… hardly a fair comparison.
If you’re looking at performance, the Session is much closer to high-end rods than mid-range.
For example, the Scott Session sits almost halfway between the Sage Foundation and the Scott Centric in price. However, the Session sits much closer to the Centric in performance and feel.
The components on the Session (especially the reel seat, filler, and grip) are only a very small step down from the Centric, but miles above a Foundation or anything else that we’ve seen at this price point. It’s nice enough that we’d put a nice reel on it (think Ross San Miguel, Abel Vaya, etc…) but would also make a sweet sub-thousand dollar package paired with a Ross Animas.
Thanks for reading, and as always, give us a call any time. We’re always happy to talk gear and fishing.
-Dragonfly Anglers