When the first Imago rod hatched from the bag I wondered if I had been sent a prototype rod by mistake. Bare carbon, no gloss, no paint, no company name and details on the butt section – just the way test rods are put together. Look a little closer and all the rings are expensive titanium alloy Recoils, whippings are about as neat and small as possible, the grip is turned from high quality cork – hardly the way prototypes are fitted out. The blank is slim, even the joints are slender and the butt end concludes with a simple reel seat where the bare minimum of details about the rod are engraved on the metalwork and the Imago name is cut into the wooden spacer.

Decisions about how a rod will look influence how it will perform – even a layer of paint on a blank makes a change to the way that blank behaves. Imago have designed their rods to be and to look functional, and the spartan build is intended to inhibit the performance of the blank as little as possible.

9ft #5 4pce fast action
I tried the faster of two Imago rods first. My first impressions of the way this rod performs are all positive, a lovely, lively, precise rod. Imago give CCS measurements for their rods so I know the action is moderate to fast and the stiffness is medium. Extremely well controlled tip, I have trouble forcing a wave into the rod-leg of a loop, so my loops are very clean and tend to be narrow, even pointed. I can feel the rod working with a fairly short length of #5 line and until I try false casting an extremely long line I remain in control. Within that considerable ‘sweet spot’, feedback from the rod helps me judge how fast I need to move and the angle of the casting arc. That sense of precision comes from a light blank with a very light tip, and translates into accurate casting – to my mind this is a deadly accurate dry-fly rod.


9ft #5 4pce medium action
The second Imago has a slower action, the Action Angle says 4˚ less, plus this is a fractionally less stiff rod. In my hand, this feels a little heavier, a little more ponderous. I work a little harder, push the rod a little harder to get the same line-speed. Three possible reasons for that: the tip of a rod with a slower action and similar stiffness is physically heavier; bent against the same force, which gives the same line-speed, a slower rod is a longer lever measured from butt to tip; typically rods with slower actions either use a lower modulus carbon fibre cloth or incorporate more lower modulus stuff. That second reason is a little counter-intuitive but unless the slower rod is far softer the difference can be several inches of lever – more than enough for a caster to feel.

Again the Imago shows well controlled recovery, i.e. clean loops. I can force a stop and make the tip bounce which throws a wave into the rod leg of the loop, so to adjust my casting to the rod I accelerate the rod a little less rapidly, use a wider arc, a slightly longer stroke to reach roughly the same peak speed and stop smoothly.

Again, a pleasing casting tool if a little heavier on my wrist. Loops are clean and more open – which, to my mind, suits a lot of fishing situations – heavier flies, longer leaders with droppers and the like.

For dry fly fishers, and those of us who enjoy the sheer pleasure of casting, the faster Imago is the one to go for. Fishers who want a slower tempo to their casting and/or sling a few weighted flies, the slower rod is tempting. Both are superb fly rods.