I purchased this rod because it looks great, and have heard Hardy makes great Fly rods. Unfortunately the obvious is this model is several years old, not a bad thing really its gets bad when you have to make several return/exchanges due to some being shipped with damage guides, whether its was chipped epoxy of the O ring had fallen out of the guide, not the snake guide. The honest truth I don't blame Sierra, but how long have the rods been in a warehouse who knows? Time, weather, storage take that into account damages will occur. I'm not happy with the results, and makes me realize the truth about E-shopping VS supporting your local Fly shop. The time to get a replaced rod can take a week maybe even more. Sierras customer service did try to get me to have a clean un used/damage rod but no success there. It got frustrating after the 2nd time. you want a fly rod to go out and catch fish, not play exchange/return several times. after realizing I came across this issue several times NO Customer Rep decided to go above and beyond for all the troubles its just became. I asked for a manager to call me Not one did. It sucks that the times I wanted to keep a rod I couldn't because I needed to fix the damage, for the prize of 400 plus dollars I don't find it to be fair to fix something I just purchased. Not the best results in general.

I purchased a Hardy Ultralite for $399 pretax. It arrived in a badly beaten up cardboard box with literallly not padding or packaging, just the rod in its aluminum tube left to rattle around.

Of course, the tube was badly scratched and had several dings. Even worse, when i took out the rod itself, the plastic cork protector was partially and haphazardly removed, the cork was stain and had chips missing from it. It was clearly (aggressively) used by a previous buyer who likely took it in a trip and then returned it for full refund.

I brought this to the attention of Sierra customer service and their idea of a resolution was to offer a $35 gift card ?? which is less than 10% of the rod’s purchase price. Nice, felt like a slap in the face.

Cross your fingers you get a an actually new rod and not somebodies sloppy seconds.

This is a great do it all 5 weight rod. I own many high end rods and I bought this rod to upgrade my back-up 5 weight and it has taken the starter spot in short time. This is a powerful 5 weight but not over stiff and very forgiving with casting timing. Just a great rod and an incredible deal at this price, fit and finish is good too. I am now a Hardy fan.