My new Tuna Popping Spinning Rod

[Anglers Pro Shop]

Originally Posted by ksong

If OTI 7 1/2 ft rod weighs 18 1/2 oz, it is a little heavy for me as I feel I need one lighter than WRC80P/35.

Tell me when you find a GT rod of that class that is lighter!!

Thats as light as it can get, I think the only way to reduce weight is to downsize the reel of find a lighter reel.

[Minnow]

Kil,

That rod is just a prototype, our production rods will be much lighter.

When is your next fishing trip?

[ksong]

Originally Posted by Minnow

Kil,

That rod is just a prototype, our production rods will be much lighter.

When is your next fishing trip?

MY 10' Shimano rod is 18 oz.
7 1/2 ft rod should be lighter. I think I feel my age now.

I got skunked when I went tuna jigging the other day as I opted to go far to catch bigger ones. I lost my interest to catch 40 - 60 lbs. Maybe it is because I caught too many small tuna in 40 -60 lbs range last fall.
I asked Capt to call me only when 100 + lbs tuna show up.
I am waiting for tuna reports. I can go to Cape Cod for popping tuna or go down to South Jersey for jigging tuna. If there is no good report, I might go overnight cod jigging trip to MA or overnight tilefish jigging on Sunday night.
We have much varieties than you think.

[Uncle Russ]

The Smith Tokara lists in the catalog at around 15 ounces (heavier but shorter than the 80P/35,) and the Komodo Dragon is right there with it. The Carpenter Wild Violence (God, I love that name!) 83 lists as around 17. As Randy has explained to me over and over, these are intended for GT and not tuna. What is interesting to me is that they do not lay claim to as much in the deadlifting capability of the OTI rods. (The Carpenter rod lists max drag of 35 pounds. And the OTI claims what, over 40 pounds of deadlift?) That seems pretty impressive in a couple of rods that are 8' 3" and 7' 6", respectively. I guess if they both were to cast equally well, it would come down to a couple of ounces lighter for the Japanese rods as opposed to two to three hundred cheaper for the OTI rod.

I still think (all speculation since I could not weigh the foam separately) that the OTI, with the same foam (Hypalon?) grips as the Japanese rods, would shed an ounce or two. But I don't know that as fact. And I like those grips, with the indentations.

Kil: Would you feel comfortable using the 10 foot rod which needs to be treated more carefully on a party boat as you would on a smaller charter?

Russ

[ksong]

Originally Posted by Anglers Pro Shop

Tell me when you find a GT rod of that class that is lighter!!

Thats as light as it can get, I think the only way to reduce weight is to downsize the reel of find a lighter reel.

I know, Randy. I am thinking about buying Saltiga Z 6500 instead of Stella 10000/20000 simply because of the weight. For a time being I am going to use Shimano's 9' Tiralejo rod until it breaks as it weighs only 14 oz.

[ksong]

Originally Posted by Uncle Russ

Kil: Would you feel comfortable using the 10 foot rod which needs to be treated more carefully on a party boat as you would on a smaller charter?

Russ

Russ, the 10' Tiralejo surf rod is heavy duty. Nobody abuses rods than I do and I think the rod can survive my abuse.

[Anglers Pro Shop]

Russ,

Dead weight lift is only to show the bend on the rod at certain loading, not the max dead load.

Tuna and GT rods are very different - Depending on terrain, fighting a GT requires very heavy drag to stop them from running into structure, alot of jerking from the angler, head shakes from the fish and sudden surge.

Tuna rods are much more forgiving rods, all tuna does is run and run which means consistent pressure; which makes making a tuna rod much easier.

I.E. comparing the 2 species pound for pound; a GT of 80lb will require plenty of stopping power (20lb or more) or else its history whereas a tuna of the same size can be boated easily with even 15lb drag depending how fast you want to boat the fish. By the way I have been pulling a lot of hooks on tuna these size, my guess is too much drag is not suitable, perhaps Kil can enlighten as he caught several hundred fish of these size.

[ksong]

Originally Posted by Anglers Pro Shop

By the way I have been pulling a lot of hooks on tuna these size, my guess is too much drag is not suitable, perhaps Kil can enlighten as he caught several hundred fish of these size.

Heavy drag can cause pulling hooks. As you see in the picture below, I would have lost the tuna if I used heavy drag ( I used 15- 17 lbs drag) as it was lip hooked.
However, I believe I lose more fish by fighting longer than by using heavier drag. If fish pulls hooks, I just regard it as a bad luck.
Many tuna are lost when they make headshakes. When they do, it is critical to crank very fast not to give any slack, especially for jigging/popping as hooks are mostly around hard parts of mouth.

[Uncle Russ]

Understood, Kil. I have learned a great deal from you and the others about excessive drag, and I credit Captain Eddie's having lowered all of our drags to the high ratio of landed yellow fin to hookups (16 hooked/13 brought to gaff). My only reason for bringing the subject up was to account for why a rod might need to weigh more (in those cases where someone needs the heavy drag more than say, I would.) In my case, at one point, I looked at the setting on my ATD 50 wide when I landed the 70-75 pound fish, and noticed that the preset lever was at the letter that corresponded to only 17 pounds at strike. I never went beyond strike, and the fish only made two runs--the initial one and the one when he saw the boat close by. A good lesson learned.

Randy: I had thought that to be the case, as to dead lift, but am I correct in thinking that if you can deadlift a certain weight at a certain rod angle, then you could also apply that much drag, if fished at the same angle?

Russ

[Ragman]

Originally Posted by Uncle Russ

but am I correct in thinking that if you can deadlift a certain weight at a certain rod angle, then you could also apply that much drag, if fished at the same angle?Russ

You are correct Russ! However, there are few fish and anglers that can sustain constant 40# drag for very long!

This is an EXCELLENT thread that provides a lot of information between some of the best rods in the world.

Though I have a vested interest in OTI rods (as does Randy with Smith/Carpenter etc), I want to clarify that OTI rods were designed and built for Anglers that want a production rod (ready to go w/o waiting for a custom-built rod) built from only the BEST components, and strong, and lightweight.

BUT, for the Angler also looking for the best value!

Russ mentioned it, but the $$$ difference between the Japanese rods could be viewed as substantial to most of the market we're targeting.

Our $200-$300 price point -considering OTI quality and warranty- is hard to beat in my biased opinion.

The 7'6" proto is just that, a proto. As TJ mentioned, our final production rod will be lighter. We saw some handle and foregrip products at ICAST that we will be working with.