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FISHING NEW TOYS FOR CHRISTMAS BY CAPTAIN ASPARAGUS S eeing as it is coming up to Christmas, summer and fishin' time, for this issue I thought I would do a "new toys" s, story, looking at a few of the newer items I have come across lately that I think are significant. How to start? Well, let's start with a rod. Believe it or not, I actually felt like I needed a new rod. In order to scratch this particular itch, I made a short trip over the Mamakus to Rotorua to see my mates at Kilwell. Once there, I had a chat with Kilwell's rod-blank design guru, Neville Podmore, about some of their newer work with the latest rod technology. In my opinion, Kilwell has some of the world's best technology going on in rod design, something we see little of here in New Zealand, but is recognised internationally as being the real goods. d While Kilwell themselves may not be making up too many of these blanks into rods for their own range, they are indeed going around the world. In the last 20 months alone, over 4300 of the new popper/ jig blanks have been sent offshore to fishermen in Australia, Singapore, Europe and the United States. As I said, Kilwell technology is a world leader. A while back, I was lucky enough to score one of their new popper rod designs and although it's only 18 months old it has already been superseded by 3G models that are frankly incredible. Neville is now using the latest nano-technology materials in his rod blanks. To get technical, carbon helical nanotube cloth gives greater binding to the epoxy, more strength, stretch and resilience to a rod blank. By going with the latest high-modulus materials, they are able to get stronger rods with progressively thinner and lighter blanks. A result of new mandrels (the moulds on which the rods are wound) to give improved rod shapes, new cloths and resins, along with design innovations like the reverse taper for the two-piece rods, I have to say the latest runs are amazing pieces of rod tech. And yes, I did order myself one, too. Hell, I couldn't help myself, they are just too good not to. oing around the world I was expecting a horror story when discussing the prices of these new high-tech blanks, but to my delight, the blanks themselves are not hugely more than the more run-of-the-mill blanks you may see from any other manufacturers. The costs in rods these days really depends on the "bling level". It is the fruit you put on your rod that costs. That is a whole other subject. I may go into that can of worms some other time, but for now, suffice to say my rod is gunna be blingier than yours! Well, you have to really, don't you? The rod I opted for was pretty much specific to me, a light, one- handed spinning rod for flicking light poppers and lures around tropical reefs, with the stiffness to apply instant pressure to fish, while retaining enough "flick" at the tip to zap a lure way out there. Mike Jew, Kilwell's in-house custom rod building pro, is putting together a very sweet rod just for little old me. The reason I wanted a beefier rod is that this year in the tropics, 50 Professional Skipper January/February 2012 e . ue " s This popper rod is a favourite with the ladies when flicking around lighter lures, I was getting smacked by some pretty grunty fish. While the 8-10kg soft-bait rod I was using was a great caster and was still able to eventually turn the fish, to my mind it was just too soft to really put the hurt into them. Hooking up on a decent red bass (kinda like a snapper on steroids, with an attitude problem to boot), I would whip the rod tip up on the strike, but although the rod butt and lower section of the rod would come up to around the 12 o'clock position, the darned rod tip would barely move, held in place by the fish screaming out and in the downwards direction. I want something that will have the grunt to actually lift the rod tip, placing as much pressure as possible on the fish's head to turn it from the bommies ( w I s lo u th he an gru as fis quicker These new blanks Ne . These new blanks Neville is working on will do just that, judging by the one I had a play with. The team at Kilwell think this blank will be a little stiff for the New Zealand market, and Neville at this moment is working on a run of New Zealand-adapted rod blanks for soft-bait fishing, something a deal less brutal than my needs. However, I am not so sure they are necessarily right. A fair range of smaller lures have now been brought in for soft bait fishermen to use. The theory is, as a couple of importers have explained to me, that fishermen often will see kingfish cruising past while they are flicking soft baits around, and having some small poppers or stickbaits in the box means they can zap a lure out in short order to hook into a kingie. Add to that the arrival of hard-body lures, such as the widely trumpeted Sebile Lures for snapper, and there is now a good range of smaller lures around for kingfish and snapper, all of which are supposed to be easily used on soft bait sets. Well, I don't know about that. I was using a soft bait set in the Solomons, and a reasonably grunty one too, which I felt was undergunned in fighting the fish up there. I'm sure if you were to lay into a decent kingfish or a big snapper on a rod made to work soft plastics here, you would face the same issues – a lack of hurt- power to put onto the fish. This new rod of mine … well, this will definitely not be the case! This all dovetails nicely into the next part of this "new toys" segment, some of these hardbody lures themselves! There are several out there now, the highest profile ones being the new Sebile Lures from Purefishing (the Gulp soft baits people). These have been used with success in Aussie on their big snapper and here in New Zealand in this last year or so as well. These are used in much the same fashion as your soft baits, that is, casting slightly ahead of your boat's direction, letting the lure sink to the fish and then slowly working the lure through the strike zone. As you lift your rod-tip, the shape of the lure makes the whole thing tremble and vibrate, a massive turn-on to predatory fish