My angling companion was a novice -- a first-timer, in fact -- and after a morning's fishing in the pool (one trout, two salmon, two missed strikes) we returned to camp for lunch. My rookie friend carried the rod we had been sharing, my beloved Sage 4-weight, and I was momentarily distracted by a neighbor as my friend attempted the awkward business of entering a 6-and-a-half-foot-high doorway holding an 8-and-a-half-foot flyrod. The mismatch proved fatal to the rod tip.

The rod was not only possessed of a beautiful, fluid action which Master Flycaster McCauley Lord described as "Valium," it also held fond memories of Telluride, Colorado, where I had bought the rod some ten years ago during a visit to Telluride's Mountain Film Festival. My pal Stephen Olsson, a documentary filmmaker, had a film in the festival and he had invited me to join him in Telluride. We met in Salt Lake City and drove from there, enduring Utah's flat, arid expanses, crossing into Colorado near Grand Junction and climbing up the western side of the Rockies.

It was Spring in Telluride, and snow still clung to the hillsides. Trout fishing was on my mind as I studied the mountain streams, running icy cold with fresh snowmelt. On Telluride's main drag was an angling shop. A sale was on. I was naturally drawn into the shop, saw the Sage, felt the action, fell in love, bought it. Over the years we've been inseparable.

Now comes Sally, Australian as a kangaroo, game for a new sport. (Australians have an expression: Too much sport is never enough.) With a bit of coaching, she landed two salmon, her first ever, and a brookie. Then the fatal march back to camp, the encounter with the screen door, and a cleanly-broken rod tip. I was brave. I might have felt like sobbing but I didn't. Sally probably felt worse than I did, especially when I told her what a new Sage rod costs.

Then the call to Sage, out there on Bainbridge Island, Washington.

"You just send us the rod, with a little note explaining what happened, and a check for $40. We'll have the rod back to you in a couple of weeks, new tip and all."

Relief? Exultation! Joy! Tell you what: go buy a Sage rod and tell 'em I sent you. Sage.com. They won't give you a discount or anything, but you'll have a flyrod for life.