Daiwa Zillion 7'3" / Medium-Heavy / Fast | Polish Pete

Video Transcription

I am here with a highly anticipated rod bending of the new Daiwa Zillion rod series. Now, if you're not familiar with Daiwa Zillion, the name Daiwa Zillion, it is a I wouldn't call it flagship of Daiwa, but it is to me and a lot of Daiwa fans be considered one of their flagship lineups, the Zillion. It's been known as a real, it's been a longstanding real in the family for a long time, casting reel within the Daiwa world. But they have throughout the years come up with a couple different versions of rods. I've always been in the higher end of Daiwa's lineups to the Zillion rods. And now they bring us a long awaited monocoque version, monocoque handle carbon fiber.

You're gonna hear that terminology, monocoque, a lot when you talk about a lot of the Japanese stuff. Daiwa's obviously went with it on the real side of things first, Shimano went with it on the rod side of things first, at least state side. There's a lot of discussion about who was doing these type of handles for a long time. And I know in the US domestic market, Shimano beat everybody to the punch on that a long time ago. But in Japan, this is a handle style that's been out for a while. I know, even from my Daiwa days way back when Daiwa had monocoque handled rods in Japan, in the Blazon family, there was another family as well, I can't remember what it was. And this style of handle has been very popular in a lot of rods they use for like, I you fishing and different styles of shore fishing where they use much longer rods, these monocoque style handles have been staples and that that those type of rods for a long time over in the Japanese domestic market. And I know even some European rod manufacturers like Eris and people like that have had these style handles, but we haven't seen Daiwa make a plunge into this in the US domestic market until right now. We are seeing it now with the Zillion rods. And it does look really cool. Looks awesome. I love the handle that they put on these real so far. That was one of the first things I noticed.

I get nervous anytime I see any sort of secondary trigger or bump in there. I know that's not another trigger, but that that all ACS style real seat that we see in a lot of my opinion, like price point style rods, I can't stand when I see it in the higher end rods. But those types of real seats would eat my fingers up quite a bit because I do hold my hand forward as I talk about a lot on these videos. It's just my style. I put my pinky even in front of the trigger, except for when I'm casting, I have my hand up all the way forward when I'm holding on to the rod and fishing with it. And that's that little bump there really does bug me quite a bit. This is very subtle and I don't feel it. So so far with rods with this style of real seat on it, the Megabass P5's, that doesn't bug me. And neither does this one. So air sensor reel seat from dial up. Good job there. It is quite comfortable to palm for me. It does have a locking foregrip in cork. Another kudos there, not metal. It's not abrasive. It doesn't eat your fingers up or anything when you're fishing it if you were going to use a jerkbait or anything like that.

Now, we've only seen, I've actually seen a bunch of models of this out in California, but I've only seen a few models here at the store so far. We were lucky enough to have a rep Jeff drop off a few samples for us check out. So we've got a 7'3" medium-heavy here, got a couple spinning rods. This one being the most versatile common rod in the world today, the 7'3" medium-heavy, fast action is going to be one that'll be interesting for us to bend.

Couple quick things to point out before we go bend this thing is that these rods do feature the SVF nano plus blank technology, which is the same blank technology they use in a lot of the Steez rods. So we're looking at a Steez rod without AGS guides here. It's going to be interesting to see how these things come. It's how these things feel in hand with baits on them and line on them and bending them and all that stuff versus just holding them in the shop. They do feel light and they feel alive in the shop, but we want to bend them. We have some unique actions from them and a couple of those spinning rods as well. So let's start off by bending them and we'll talk more and dive in deeper to the Daiwa Zillion rods.

I'm here with the Daiwa Zillion rods as promised. I did not mention before these feature Fuji Tangle-free alcanite guides. Daiwa's SVF nano plus blank technology air sensor reel seats, monocoque handles is probably the biggest feature of all that a lot of people are going to be most interested in this and see how alive they make these rods feel. I'm going to do some bending here on this one. Like I said, this one being a 7'3" medium-heavy, fast action. And that's exactly what you got here. You got some fast action. Let me get a little hook set action on this. Yeah. So like a lot of modern day rods, it is fast in action. All it takes a little bit of wrist action. I can get that top third of the rod to bend up there. The tip action is absolutely fast. It is not extra-fast. It's exactly what it stated is fast. It does get into the backbone a little bit further back than we used to see with a lot of fast action rods. That's good, in my opinion, because today's less stretchy lines. This rod does feel exactly as advertised as a lighter weight version than the old Zillion rods. I have a bunch of the old Zillion rods. I still own some of them actually. This does feel a little bit more alive.

The big thing, if you're familiar with the older ones, they had a metal chuck on the front that was absolutely beautiful. It really was really classy looking rod. But I hold my hand forward, as you can see here like this, I would eat my fingers up on that metal chuck on that thing. This is a much smoother chuck. So this thing is a lot more comfortable in hand. I do have a little tiny Tatula 80 on here. This is just some of my personal reels. I just try and use similar reels for all the different rods. Just make them feel the same. But I did feel the rod was a touch tip heavy till I did put a reel on it. It's a lot better now than it was before. We are going to be doing some weight testing on a lot of these when we get the rest of the whole series in house. You'll be able to see that. But in the meantime, just checking out this 7'3" medium-heavy here. This thing has enough backbone to get by with a lot of your moving bait applications, the bigger stuff, a lot of your I would say three quarter and down Texas rig and stuff. Three quarter being on the real high end with that with a jig on this rod. It does have it gets that backbone down into the more moderate section of the blank. So if you are going to put big line on this, you could throw everything from like open water SPRO's frogs to everything. It is exactly as advertised with most 7'3" medium-heavy, fast action rods. This is your do all everything rod from Daiwa here in this Zillion family. So check out the Daiwa Zillion rods. Sign up your notifications if they're not already in stock is they're going to be in stock real soon. [Music]