Shimano Expride 7'2" / Medium-Heavy / Moderate / Glass | Polish Pete

Video Transcription

We are here with the very highly requested Shimano Expride. This one is the 7'2" medium-heavy glass. This is the first rod in the Expride lineup that we're hitting as far as going through the whole Expride lineup, which came as a request from you guys, the consumers that were watching the previous rod bending videos we did, said you wanted to see all the Expride models. I don't know how fast we're gonna get through every single one of the Expride models, but we do have them all on the way in sample form, so I don't have to open up all the ones we have here in the warehouse, and we're gonna be shooting all of them. We wanna know what models you wanna see first, what are the most popular Expride models according to you guys. We obviously have our sales metrics we might go off of, but definitely in the comments of this one, let us know what Expride models you wanna see most, or if there's any head-to-heads of the Expride you wanna see, so we can kind of plan out what videos we're gonna do next. So sign up for any form and notifications you have for these videos, lots more to come.

What I'm learning myself is how popular this line of rods is from our friends over there at Shimano. They do feature monocoque carbon grips on them. This particular model is fiberglass. If you've watched any of our videos before, you probably know from myself, I have not found my confidence level in glass rods the way I should have by now for as much as I have fished in my life. I tend to get thrown off by them 'cause they tend to be a little heavier. They tend, you know, obviously they have moderate action that's fiberglass in general. I haven't found myself not losing as many fish or anything like that. So I always buy glass rods, trust me, I've bought a whole bunch, and I end up switching back to graphite style rods of moderate actions later throughout the year. But there's a couple that I've started to grow fond of, and I'll talk about that later, but this one has been a big surprise so far. I can see why all of you wanted to talk about this one so much.

This one is designed, I believe, obviously being a 7'2" medium-heavy, it's in that realm of chatterbait rod. Chatterbait rods is why this one comes up a ton when we talk chatterbait rods. It feels way lighter and it doesn't look like a fiberglass rod. In fact, when I put this reel, which yes, it's a Daiwa reel, I know I'm breaking the rules here, but no one gave me any reels for this. These are my personal reels, and I wanted to have a bunch of the same reels on all the rods, so you got little Tatula 80's with round knobs I put on them on all these rods, so that's what you get. Unless anybody wants to be nice and send me a bunch of free reels to shoot with matching reels to rods on them. But this one surprised me, I put the reel on it, and I actually right away thought, oh, we screwed up, grabbed a graphite model, not the glass model, no, this is the glass model.

And it isn't fat, and it isn't bulbous, and it's not really super heavy. It's actually quite light. We weighed it even, so that's another feature you'll see coming from us down the pipeline. We haven't figured out how to get it on camera yet, where it looks right. But on our own scale, this rod came out at 4.7 ounces. So going forward, we are gonna tell you our real world rod weight, and it came in at 4.7, so that's really light for a fiberglass rod. It feels really light, I will say.

It's a touch tip heavy. Now I do have a tiny little compact reel on here, and maybe if you went to a full-size Curado or a normal reel that's not a compact reel, like this little lady, it probably balances out great, 'cause it's very little tip heavy. It is not majorly tip heavy. It's balancing just a little bit forward of the grip there. I like to palm with my hand pretty far forward, so even with my hand all the way up here with my finger in front of the trigger, it's still just a touch tip heavy, but not bad at all. In fact, probably one of the best-class rods I've felt in hand personally for this technique of chatter bait fishing. So let's go bend it on the wall and see how the very, very famous Shimano Expride 7'2" medium-heavy glass does.

All right, I'm back with the 7'2" medium-heavy glass, fiberglass, Expride rod. We're gonna load it up slowly here, and yeah, she's moderate as moderate as can be. Looks like fiberglass. If you look at bend curvature, it's halfway down the blank for sure, maybe even a little bit more, it wants to bend. I'm seeing a little bend even in front of the stripper guide there or whatever you'd call it first on a baitcaster. That is definitely a fiberglass rod and is loading up that way. Something you probably can't see on camera is this rod is a little stiffer than I expected it to be. It actually takes a little effort to load it up, which does make it really nice for setting the hook with a single hook bait, like a chatterbait rod. We were just having a debate about that here in the warehouse moments ago here at Omnia about whether or not it was worth it fishing fiberglass rods. We have some people here that are graphite people that wanna be able to set that hook and feel that grass, but I pointed out, like I'll point out later, in some other videos that the best chatterbait anglers are all using fiberglass and they say they lose a lot less fish. And I kind of believe them because they do win a lot of tournaments with them and I don't, so I'll follow their lead. It is funner to fish the graphite, but this rod does feel alive. It doesn't feel dead like a fiberglass rod.

I would have to say if I was in the market for a fiberglass chatterbait rod, I'd definitely be looking at this Shimano Expride 7'2" medium-heavy glass. The people on the internet that don't shut up about this rod, they were right. It's really special. It actually is. It bends like a fiberglass rod and it does everything you want a fiberglass rod to do, but it does feel like it's an actual fun fishing rod to fish with. So kudos Shimano. Check, look forward to seeing more of these Expride models. They come in for shooting purposes. So we'll be back with more. Don't forget, let us know in the comments below what models of Expride you want to see most. (upbeat music)