Unique Custom Rod Turning Heads Now
Posted by Jason Sealock on Mon, Aug 09, 2010 @ 09:21 AM
We stopped in at the JB Custom Rods booth at the Forrest Wood Cup. JB was busy with several customers so we talked about the rods with Chris Wood from the NC State College Bass Fishing team and pro Guido Hibdon.
These rods are custom made with high-modulous blanks. The first of many unique aspects of the rods were spiral wrapped guides. Several years ago, some major manufacturers experimented with spiral wrapped guides, but because of cost and time, it's since faded into the background. These rods are bringing back that concept with pros having success with them.
Basically spiral wrapping eliminates rod roll when fighting fish with a baitcasting rod. On most rods the guides are in a straight line on top of the blank. As you fight a fish from side to side, some rods will litterally twist and roll under load. This causes stress points and weakens a rod if it twists too far.
But with spiral wrapping the guides spin from the top of the blank to the bottom of the blank successively so that it ends us more like a spinning rod. It also supposedly reduces line slap against the blank when casting which results in longer casts.
The guides themselves are concept guides. When the term concept guide was first coined it was basically because they were testing a new concept with guide manufacturing. Basically with concept guides, you simply use the smallest guide you can to get from one point on a rod to the next point - usually the next guide.
The other unique aspect is the hardened resin grips. Rather than foam or cork that can dampen sensitivity these rods feature a hardened with resin grip. The grip actually felt pretty comfortable and Wood assured us they don't get slick even in the rain.
The rods felt a little heavy to us, we're guessing because of the grip, but the features were very cool. We made a few pitches with one that had Guido's signature US Reel on it. The rod seemed real sensitive and handled well.
John Crews also uses these rods on the Bassmaster Elite Series. He won one event pitching with a heavy rod on the California Delta and got third on Guntersville cranking a Spro Little John DD with the crankbait rod. To read more about these rods, visit custombassrods.com.