Who Makes The Best Jig Rod? Part 1

Video Transcript:

Jig rods, that's right, we're sick of talking about scoping. So we gotta talk about something super fun, and that's sticking them super hard with the jig. This is a controversial one, because as soon as we brought up the topic that we wanted to go through jig rods, obviously that's a massive spectrum of rods, right? Different styles of jigs, people run different types of line. So it's a wide array of rods that can be serviced as a jig rod, but we did a lot of asking, not only are the employees that work here, but our customers and did a little data research in some of our most popular jig rods, and this is what we got. I'm throwing one in, and that's this one, only because I'm a huge fan of the MagBass rod. I always have been in the GLXs, it was the first high end rod I got me in when I got into bass fishing, and my first favorite jig rod. And now there's a new one, and I don't care what anybody says, I love the action of these ones, I love the way this rod feels. So I got two of them on the way, actually. I'm gonna be fishing a jig a lot with these rods, but this is a seven foot heavy. So in the way, Jim Loomis indicates that there by inches there, so it's a 844C GLX in the new full core candle MagBass series. So let's have a little bit of an older school action. Bending it with a line on it, they feel a lot faster than they feel bending them on the floor. When you bend them on the floor, they felt a lot more moderate. Once again, that's why we got the wall. Wade this thing, it came in at 4.1 ounces, and I kid you not, that surprised me. I've been playing with this rod since they came in, and it feels like these things are like in that three ounce range. They feel insanely light in the life, hence why I want one so bad. But we're gonna go bend on the wall and see how the GLX does. Then we got a bunch more, we're gonna burn through here that are the initial ones, obviously the jig series, we could do thousands in this, so don't overwhelm us if yours is missing, but please let us know if there's some the one style jigfish and rods that we should be highlighting going forward. Starting off with the GLX 7 foot mag heavy, or 7 foot mag bass heavy power. Let's go bend it on the wall. All right. GLX 844C, the mag bass version full-core candle. My favorite rod we've got in this year, so far new rods so far. Bam. And just like I thought, this is a lot slower action than it feels like when you just had the line on it, you bend it like it feels really fast then. When you just impart action on it with your wrist, it's tippy, exactly what you want in a jig rod, but when you crack 'em, you're gonna be cracking 'em with that mid section of the rod, the top, it's still up towards the top, but it's definitely a slower tip. I love how fast this thing's gonna get into backbone and stiffness, but it's not such an aggressive tip up there that I can't get away with Bray Do-A-L-E-D-R, which I do a lot with the jig nowadays, but I can go straight Bray Do-A-L-E-D-R, and I can go straight Flora if I want. This would be a killer all around jig rod. If you run into seven foot rods or a little shorter for jig fishing, this thing's money. Back with another rod in our jig fishing series, our jig rod series, this is the Steeze AGS 7.2 Heavy. I have a long list of friends that think this is the baddest jig rod on planet Earth. A lot of them even flipped with it with like Texas rigs and stuff like that. It feels insanely light. Another surprise, it came in a little on weight wise, 4.4 ounces. So it was actually heavier than that GLX, but any of you've picked up any of the AGS guide rods, these things feel insanely light and really alive. I'm very interested in this one 'cause bending it with the line on it, it feels insanely tippy up on the front end up there. So let's see how it does in the wall, the Steeze AGS. 4.4 ounces, man. This thing is a beautiful rod. All right, here we are, Steeze AGS 7.2 Heavy. Bam. Well, I'll tell you what right now, it is insanely tippy. It looks more moderate than it's feeling to me. I'm having to really kind of give it the beans to get it lowered back there or to get it back into the meatier part of the backbone. Fast. This thing's a lot faster than it's even looking to me on the wall. It really, really wants to get into a hook set really fast. Perfect jig fishing rod. This would be a great rod. If you struggle with sensitivity with straight floral, if it's somewhere where straight florals are jammed, use AGS guides. I don't care what anybody says, I know they could be controversial at times. These things are lightning rods. They feel incredible how much they transmit. Sensitivity, straight floral, this thing would be a killer rod. If you're gonna braid to leader it, which I know that they recommend you don't do with AGS guides, but I know a lot of people that do. This would be a great rod for that too. Straight braid. I mean, this thing's a lot stiffer than it's looking. I promise you that. It's got a lot of power. So check out that Steeze AGS for a high end jig rod. If you're looking, I've gone too high end ones. Let's try one that's a little bit more moderately priced. Shimano Zodiac 7.2 Heavy. This was not only a customer one. This was also a bunch of our employees here at Omnia Fishing voted this to be the best jig rod. Most of them all said it, bet you can guess it was 'cause of the price. This thing's coming in at less than half the price to the other two rods I've done already in this series. I think it's like 219 in that ballpark or whatever on this 7.2 Heavy Zodiac. Here comes the surprise area. Weight wise, 4.4 ounces. That matches some of those super, super high end stuff we've been looking at here in the warehouse here at Omnia. So obviously it's an insane value there. They do feature their like mono-cock grips there. Like the big carbon full grip there. Nice aluminum locking nut that's not, doesn't have sharp edges on it. So don't worry about like ripping your fingers up on it or nothing that's machined really nicely. Really nice rod. Feels really nice. Feels a little slower in action than the Steeze felt. Even feels a little slower than the GLX felt. But it feels like it's got lots of power so, but you know what we gotta do next? Let's go bend it on the wall. All right. 7.2 Heavy Shimono Zodiac, Gigrod Competition here. And yeah, it's, this one's a lot like what it felt like when I had the line in my hands I was bending it. So it's more of a moderate action rod. It's gonna set the hook a little bit slower. It's stiff enough that I'm not worried that I'm not gonna get any hook penetration the minute I go to set the hooker. Like clean up slackline is gonna pick up slackline really fast. So don't worry about that end of it. But for being on the shorter end of flipping sticks, at 7.2, now we're going jig rod on this, which seems like everybody tends to lean towards more which is a little bit shorter rod for a jig rod. I know that's not the case for everybody, but it seems like as we asked around for this one, this seems to be the case, being a 7.2, it's moderate. So it would shine braid to a leader. It would shine with straight braid. Or if you're gonna floral it, I'd be a hard hook setter. If you're someone who swings really hard at them, this would be a killer rod for the money, for straight floral, but you gotta be a hard swinger on it. If you're a slow, it's suppose it's stiff enough if you leaned into them pretty good if you're using a really good hook on your jigs. But braid to a leader, a straight braid man, this thing would be a weapon. So very impressive, again, from the boys over there at Shimano. 7.2 heavy zodiacs. Here we are with another one, the St. Croix Victory, 7.3 heavy extra fast. This is their SE3+ carbon blanks, which have been insanely popular. This one's here in this fight due to straight up raw sale data, which means a lot of people are buying them and a lot of people report back to their fish and jigs with them. It's called their full contact finesse. I think that relates to the fact that we are flipping and we are pitching smaller, more compact presentations these days, but this rod's got lots of power. You don't have to be scared to run a big line. You can hit 'em hard. You can get 'em in the boat really fast. It's got a wild feeling tip in hand here. Came in at 4.5 ounces. Let's go bend the St. Croix Victory, 7.3 heavy extra fast. St. Croix Victory, 7.3 extra heavy, extra fast. Heavy power, heavy power. All right, let's start that over. St. Croix Victory, full contact finesse. Kind of love that name. It kind of does speak to all the way I fish nowadays. A lot of finesse you style jigs, but I like to crack 'em pretty hard and run big lines. So that's what this rod's for. In hand with the line on it, the tip on this thing feels insanely, insanely fast. Let's give it a bend. And here is our first mega surprise of the bunch. The tip on this thing is insanely soft. So soft that on the wall, it appears to not be that fast, not be extra fast. It appears to be almost moderate action, right? Or like fast moderate, I'd say, you know? But I'll tell you right now, this thing has a lot more power than you think. Like a lot more power. So if you look, if I just impart action in with my wrist, I get where they're going with saying that this is extra fast 'cause this tip is really light for this rod. You know what it honestly feels like? This thing feels like a solid tip rod like we've been playing with in the spinner rod. It's just on a much beefier level. Like it's got, it's almost like an ice fishing rod like a quick tip. If you're looking for a rod to throw really lightweight, smaller stuff but with big line, this is the rod. Really cool actually. Big surprise for me. I expected this thing to just bend at the very, very tip 'cause it felt pretty stiff. And when you just bend it with the line in your hands, it just bends that top section of the tip easy. But when you put any power to it, it gets way back there in the backbone. Interesting one here. This is a very interesting one from St. Croix. I can see why this one's very popular in the Victory lineup. All right, back with another one. Another one in that price conscious round, we kind of jumped into that with the Zodiacs and the Victory, we're running into like the best value kind of jig rods. I think that Victory rod was pretty cool 'cause it was very unique to the other, against the other ones. Definitely something to look out there for if you're looking for that unique situation throwing like the compact stuff. This one here is not a stranger to me at all 'cause I owned a bunch of these actually in my day. This is the skipping rod from Iowa, the jig skipping rod. This is now under Randy Howell's name. Used to be under Andy Montgomery's and now Randy's got it. I by the way, just to give Randy a little love there. If you ever seen Randy skip some docs, his name does deserve beyond a skipping rod. He blew my mind one day. I got to film with him and he was an incredible skipping docs. So put another video out of you skipping docs Randy. This is a 7-1 heavy to Tula Elite rod. This is the new to Tula Elite rods, which they told us we're gonna be lighter. You wanna know what? 4.3 ounces. That's right, this one came in. It's the second lightest rod so far. And this thing comes in at a killer price point. It's around 200 bucks. Actually, I think it's a little less than that. I think it's like 179 or something like that. Don't quote me exactly what we'll put the price in the descriptions or something like that, but this thing feels way more powerful than even a lot of the other ones I've been bending so far. But this thing's supposed to have a little bit of tip and then be able to crack him and get him out away from that doc. So let's go bend the Tula Elite 7-1 heavy Docs skipping rod. Tula Elite 7-1 heavy Docs skipping rod. This is under Randy Howell's signature series and in the signature series elite rods. Bam, this thing is way powerful. You could fish a one ounce jig with this thing like no problem. That's 7 foot 1. If you're looking for like a rod in the short realm of flipping sticks, this thing's awesome. And I love the action of it, honestly, 'cause it's pretty universal. Just like stated, it's got just a little bit of tip up there. And that is designed on purpose. Just to give your jig a little moment, I'm a little rolling it to fire that jig in for skipping, but then immense backbone immediately as soon as you lay into 'em, you got power to pull 'em right out of that doc. There's no screwing around when you're skipping docs with the jig, you don't want 'em to run around into the doc and jump around. So that's what this thing's designed with. This thing is way more powerful. I feel like it's a lot more powerful than the previous version. I own that rod, I own a few of 'em actually, and that this one feels a lot stouter for some reason on the wall here. Check out the Randy Howell 7-1 skipping jig rod if you're looking for a powerful jig rod. Mega Bass Destroyer P5 FMJ. I know some of you probably were waiting on this one because this is widely known as one of the best or most popular jig rods on the high end, like the enthusiast market. This is rated as a medium heavy, fast action. It feels sort of medium heavy when you bend it with a line in your hand and it feels pretty fast as well. Doesn't, it feels exactly what the description is. If you're not familiar with the Destroyer line, the P5 Destroyer line anyway, the very minimalistic handles on 'em. At Mega Bass Nice though, really nice aesthetics and finishes to 'em. Did a really nice job in the aesthetics of these rods. They feel really light, they feel alive. This one another surprise 'cause it feels, I would say, more balanced maybe or lighter than some of the other rods do. It does, and it maybe just the minimalistic handle that makes it feel that way. They do feel really alive, they're not painted, they feel really crisp. 4.5 ounces, so it's right in range with all the other rods, a little heavier than a couple of 'em, but not by much. Let's go check out the FMJ from Mega Bass. Destroyer P5 FMJ from Mega Bass, 7-3 medium heavy. This is the first, I believe, medium heavy of the bunch. And I'll tell you what, it has heavy as some of the other ones. The tips a lot faster than it's looking to me on. It's honestly, I know the curve on it's pretty even, but it wants to stay up in that tips section and probably promise you, this thing's fast. It's a lot faster than it looks. It wants to use the top, I'd say five guides there to crack you, it really does. It wants to use those top five guides to set the hook, that portion of the tip. A lot faster rod than it even felt in hand. It's definitely the power is towards the end of this rod. Very impressed with this thing. These things just feel really nice, they're expensive, but man, they feel really nice. If you're a jig fanatic and you want a really fancy jig rod, if you're proud of at home as much as you are on the water, this thing's super sweet. Check out the P5 Destroyer FMJ. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)