Hover/ Mid Strolling 101: Rods

Video Transcript

You know what we haven't talked about in a while, that's Forward facing sonar. I know, I'm lying. We talk about it a lot. What we haven't talked about though, a lot, is the rods we carry specifically for the technique of hover/mid-strolling. Because it's such a new technique, it took a little time for the manufacturers really to adapt to that, right? And come out with some rods that were specifically designed for scoping with a minnow, right? It's interesting because we're seeing a couple of different schools of thoughts here on what that would entail. Now we've seen some manufacturers have rods that they already had in their lineup that people are using, and I want to be very clear on that. Well, we've discovered here, as we started doing this technique a lot last year, there's a lot of our, I would say anywhere in that seven foot range, so a little shorter than that, like 610 to seven foot, up to like seven and a half foot rods, and then medium power with a really fast tip will work. And that's a wide spectrum, right? You can go medium light, you can go medium heavy. I've seen all of the rods work, but I'm gonna tell you what I have seen personally in my own experience is the rods with the solid tips or slash, a stinger tip, sorry, have been the ones that shine the most for us anyway, for it when we've been imparting it. Now I can tell you that when you look at what a lot of the Japanese anglers that have had success, they're using a lot of solid tip rods. I did go to Japan and do a little investigation on this topic, and I learned a lot about that. But we're gonna start out with some rods that we have here at Omnia Fishing that are ideal for the technique. One of them is very different than all the rest, and we'll get to that here shortly, but we'll start off with the one that is the most visually impressive to me, it makes the most sense. It's also by far the most expensive and bougie one of the whole bunch, and the one I want the most, 'cause I just recently went crappie fishing with Jacob that works here, and he has this rod, and it looked like the funnest time ever, and the rods just wild, but that is the Steeze AGS. They call this rod the Ned. So this is a six foot 10, it is a light power, but it has the stinger tip or the solid tip on it. And you can tell with this one it's pretty intense because this one actually has orange wraps up towards the guide, the rest of the rod, is carbon fiber guides, just black wraps, and the thing looks all kind of tricked out and expensive, but you get up to the tip and it almost looks more familiar to ice anglers than anybody else, like it's almost like a spring bobber up here. But this little tip on this thing is absolutely wild. It allows you to shake your bait in place and not move it quickly through the water column, and immediately get into the hook as soon as you start loading the rod up at all. That's why those quick tips are so incredible. I've been insanely sensitive tip, the solid tips, but you can get right into the back of the rod immediately. So even though you might be fishing far away from the boat, let's say 80, 100 foot, 120 foot nowadays with a lot of the scopers, even further at times. Even with a short rod that's really light like that, I can set the hook from far away 'cause the rod's tip shut off so fast. They're not parabolic in action, they're more super extra extra extra fast kind of. That's what those solid tips do. Most popular ones out there right now, I'll bet you 'cause they're the hardest ones to get your hands on, trust me, we've tried a whole bunch to get a bunch of these in stock. That would be the X-pride solid tips. So this is Shimano's answer to this mid strolling/4 facing sonar technique, and that is in their very popular X-pride family. Solid tips on these ones as well. Woo, you see the tip is insanely, insanely super extra fast on these, I would give the Steeze one a little bit more dramatic, but it should be right, that rod's like five, six hundred bucks. These are always known for value, really, really impressive solid tip in the medium. When you get into the medium heavy, this thing's got some legit backbone to it. The solid tip isn't as extreme as it is on its medium friend, so it bends back a little bit further, almost just like an extra fast regular graphite rod, even though the tip is solid on this. But this one would be a lot more versatile for doing a whole bunch of stuff other than just trying to shake a minnow with a little ball head in it out there. So the next one I wanna point out is one that just grew in popularity because of the employees that work here. We all went nuts over this thing when it came in because of the fact that it's kind of a cross between both those Exprides. This is the Evergreen Combat Stick, the new one. This one is their solid tip model. They actually deem it the Gizmo rod right now, but I do think they might change that up because so many people are finding it for the exact reason we are as being like the deal for scoping. It is really light, the rod's done really well, it's really powerful. You could fish those big EWG horizon head jigs, bigger hooks, bigger minnows, or you could fish a little dainty ones 'cause this little tip on this thing's wild, but this rod's got tons of power. So if you fish anywhere where there's some bigger fish or there's some cover, this rod is a real gem. Don't sleep on this one, I mean that. If you're into solid tip rods, you wanna try one out, this is a great one. It's not gonna break the bank, it's not cheap by any means, but it's not overly expensive. And this one does a lot of what all the rods I showed already, all in one, 'cause of the fact that it's so stiff, but it's got that wild stinger tip on it. Next up are two we just got. And so why would I put them in with the ones that we would recommend? Well, they're both designed around this idea, and they're both gonna be really popular, but one of them is really different than the other, but we'll start off with the beautiful one here, that is the Mega Bass Orochi 10 Medusa. This is a solid tip rod again. Mega Bass does a very good job with these kind of crazy tips on these rods, they've been doing it for a very long time. So this isn't new technology to them. So durability wise, I'm not that worried about these ones. They should, if you take care of them, do really well. The rod does feel really light and crisp in hand. I do like this rod quite a bit. I would be saying if I was in the market for one right now, this would be one I'd be trying for sure, because the action on the rod is really impressive. It's got lots of backbone, but it's got a crazy soft stinger tip up there. In fact, it's one of the softest stinger tips next to the Steeze one, the first rod I showed. So if you're really looking for that extreme softness in a stinger tip, check this rod out. Lastly, whole different school of thought, gotta give it to us Americans for that. Come right over the bow from how the Caroline is there with a Ford-facing Sonar rod, that they probably put right on the blank right there. There's no mistaking what this rod was designed for. This is the cash in Ford-facing Sonar rods and they're icon serious. I own a couple of icons spinning rods myself, just the traditional models. I like their longer ones, they're seven sixes, real nice, high landing percentage on these rods. I like them a lot actually. I love the grips on them, no exposed threads, nice four grip on them, I like that a lot. This one here is a seven five fast medium light. There's also a seven four I believe in this as well and a medium. So what you're getting here is not a stinger tip. I'm gonna point that out. Like if you look here as I bend this, it's the complete opposite of all the other rods I've been sending you. This thing's actually gotta insanely slower taper than the other ones. Almost I would say mod fast instead of fast action. I will tell you the tip section does feel fast enough that I would still deem it fast. I don't blame them for putting that on there, but man, the backbone goes way back on this thing. It really does arch pretty parabolic. I've got some rod bending footage out there. If you guys wanna check that out on this rod where the rods almost killed completely over, almost parabolic. This to me would always have been like a Fairjig rod or a Spybait rod. This would be designed for it, but what they're thinking here is is now with everybody getting better and better at scoping at distance. You see the crappie breaks on people's boats. Those are designed to stop you far away, keep those fish out 100 plus feet away from the boat and make long accurate casts to the fish. That's what the theory is here. So you're seeing there being a shift in ways people are viewing this. Do you want the light little tiny rod to kind of like a conductor's wand there as they're conducting an orchestra where you're shaking that middle round, it's less fatiguing and more kind of pinpoint with a short little rod with that crazy tip on it or do you want this longer rod that gives you that ability to easily make a really long cast of these fish? I would bet you landing percentage wise. This would be the plus on this one because of the action of the rod. It's more in that theory of glass. It's more parabolic. It's going to fight the fish a little bit better than one of those stinger tip rods were, where the tip kind of shuts off. But I think with the light wire hooks were running, it's kind of a wash on that in this technique. It's very interesting. It's one of those things where I'm going to have to buy both and try them. I'm excited that Cash and jumped into this market with a totally different idea around what forward facing Sono rods are. And as you see, the Japanese have made their mind. It's definitely based around that stinger tip or quick tip action. Interested to hear you guys thoughts on which one you think is going to shine over time or why you might need both? That might be the case for us down the road here. Brand new technique, mid/hover strolling and these are the rods we think are the best ones for the job. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (intense music)