Daiwa Zillion 7'0" / Medium-Light / Regular | Polish Pete

Video Transcription

What's up everybody? I am here with the Daiwa Zillion rods, this being the first spinning rod that I've had my hands on in the shop here anyway. Got one of my own reels on here with some lines so we can bend it over here on the wall behind us. This is a Flex Light model. If you're not familiar with Flex Light technology, that's a Steez technology in the Daiwa family. It is graphite, low modulus, so like glass action, blank technology, but in graphite so you don't get that big fat blank and you don't have the deadness of glass, which I know a lot of purist glass anglers like that dead feeling, I personally don't. So I've always been a fan of the Flex Lights. I own an old Steez casting model in Flex Light, a real short one that I used for jerkbait fishing for a long time, that I like quite a bit. This one here being a 7 foot medium-light, regular action. We've got a medium-light power and a moderate action due to the fact that this is Flex Light and this is 7 feet long.

Obviously the big thing sticking out here is going to be that monocoque handle that's on here. Monocoque technology has been around a little while now in the rod world. Shimano obviously popularized it here in the domestic market and in the US first with the Exprides and the Zodias rods now. Poison Adrena I believe came first in it. Don't quote me on that but whatever it is that Shimano's been doing it for a long time. I know Daiwa's had for a long time as well in the Japanese domestic market. I believe the rod series is the Blazon that's been around a long time now. There's also some other species rods that they had this technology in as well. But I know even some European rod manufacturers use it as well. I do like it. It does look really rich and it does make sense on the rods. It feels good so far. I've been impressed with these rods in hand.

They do have cork foregrip style reel seats on them which I'm a big fan of. I've stated that a lot. If you're not a big foregrip person it is decently comfortable. Split your fingers on it back here. They did do a nice job on that. The curving is really nice on this reel seat. It does feel quite nice if that's the way you like to hold your rod. They do feature Fuji Tangle Free Alconite ring guides on them. We are ready to bend this Flex Light rod. It should be interesting one being that this is a graphite moderate action spinning rod. Pretty rare. Alright, as promised I'm here with that Zillion 7'0" medium-light, regular action or moderate action Zillion Flex Light Rod.

Obviously the thing that sticks out the most as I mentioned before is that monocoque handle. This model very strangely just for the eye test has a very long rear monocoque grip on it. Very strange to see how long this is in person when I saw it when it showed up. But it does make it a lot more sense once you actually get a reel on it and you 're holding the rod. Being the fact that this is a low modulus graphite, lower modulus graphite so that it has a lot more bend and forgiveness to it. It does aid in balancing the rod out quite a bit. So as you see here with this light weight reel I've got on here it's balancing. I could probably get my finger back quite a bit more even on the front of the foregrip there. So when I'm holding it the way I hold it naturally this feels extremely well balanced. And I think a lot of that's due to the fact that it has this long monocoque handle on the rear.

So what are some applications for a seven foot moderate action spinning rod? Well I'm sure some of you have some ideas and I have some as well. Let me tighten up the drag here a little bit. Obviously right away when a lot of us anglers here at Omnia saw the rod the first time we said to ourselves this must be for like treble hook baits of the spinning rod. If you think of today's forward facing sonar world you think of things like a Jigging Rap or a blade bait or just a lipless, small lipless on forward facing sonar, spy baits, even jerkbaits which do get deployed a lot more than a spinning rod than I think people realize. This is going to aid in helping you land those fish at a higher percentage especially with small treble hooks.

The action of the rod is clear as can be moderate. If I just bend my wrist half the rod bends. So typically when I was saying like with the previous models of this rod as soon as I bend my wrist the fast action you only see that top third of the rod bend. I bend my wrist on this one and half the rod bending right away. Let me do a harder hook set here on this. As you see this rod has an absolutely perfect moderate action to it. It is bending all the way down the more pressure I put on it the further down it will bend. So if you are somebody who's looking for a rod to up your landing percentage in your spinning game this is an absolutely perfect rod for that application.

So treble hook baits on forward facing sonar or let's face it if you're not a forward facing sonar angler just a bank fisherman or anything like that with with treble hook baits and you like to deploy them with a spinning rod. This is the rod for you. I will say picking this rod up without a reel on it without lying on anything like that. This was my least exciting rod of the bunch and after putting line on it and us all playing with it. This is becoming the most intriguing spinning rod of the whole bunch that I've touched so far. I really do think even though the applications don't seem like they're super wide for me with this the more I play with it the more I think this is a pretty unique very cool rod. Kudos to Daiwa for kind of changing the norm here and coming out with a moving bait spinning rod. So cool stuff here from Daiwa. Check out the Daiwa Zillion Flex Light 7'0" medium-light, regular action Zillion rod. [Music] (upbeat music)