Evenin' all. I just thought I would have a little rave about some very nice rods I have had made for me by Kilwell over the last few year.
These are some very VERY nice light popper/stickbait rods, built on Kilwells latest nano-tech blanks, a PE3 (sort of) blank. The blank used is one step up (heavier) than the blanks used in the Kilwell Xantu soft-bait rods.
I was looking specifically for a lightweight rod that I could use for flicking around smaller poppers and stickbaits when fishing in the Solomon Islands, something I do a couple of times a year.

small poppers and aggro fish like this red bass maxed out the rods I had available... I wanted a rod with better oomph....calling Kilwell!
Small poppers like the R2C bubble pop and dumbbell poppers, and small stickbaits like the R2C 118mm wideglides and the small Sebile Stick-shadds, lures I knew would be deadly, but just were not big enough to be easily used on my normal heavy duty popper sets.
Another factor of course was that my superheroic muscles are starting to creak a little, and spending hours on end biffing huge lures on heavy rods and reels is starting to pale a little these days, if I could find a light yet ballsy rod, something I could cast single-handed like a trout spinning rod, yet able to put serious hurt and stopping power onto some pretty decent fish, well that'd be just dandy.
I approached Neville Podmore ("Nagged" here on the site) to see if they had anything that might fit the bill, and he dug out of his pile of new blanks one particular blank that, when we loaded it up, felt pretty damn near perfect for what I was after. It was one of their new "Nano-fibre" blanks, about to be made into their new Xantu rods, although this particular one was a little heavier than those being slated for use here in NZ.
These blanks Neville told me, had been a hit in the states, with a heap winding up over there for use with sailfish fishermen looking for a rod with a load of grunt but able to toss small baitfish easily into bait-balls etc. Pretty much exactly what I had in mind really. The same blanks are also being used by kiwi custom rod makers such as Synits.
So I had one built, just for little old me. Cork grips (coz they are so much nicer I think than EVA), and a relatively small 25mm i.d. first ring... smaller than normal for such a rod, as these rods have to go in rod tubes to travel, and rods with the nice big guides simply are a pain in the ass to store easily in tubes for transport. The first rod was a beauty, and in January it made it's first trip to the tropics with me.

the new rod was awesome, a total pleasure to use....
...and it soon showed itself to be just the hell weapon up there. Also, being such a light set, run with a smallish 5000 size reel, a beautiful Penn Conquer 5000, and 20lb fireline, it was the first choice of rod for the girls to use too...


... a bloody awesome light popper rod!
However.... it needed tweaking. This rod was great for small poppers, but I found it just a little stiff and a little short, for flicking around small stickbaits, it was just a little stiff in the action, for the stick baits I wanted something a tad whippier, but just as grunty when under load.
So, back to Kilwell when I got home, and talking to Neville and Mike Jew, Kilwells in-house custom rod builder, we came up with Plan B.
First, I wanted a slightly shorter butt, the cork butt on the above rod was just a couple of inches longer than I wanted for just one-handed casting, and I also wanted a slightly longer rod, as I said.
To achieve this, we came up with the plan of adding an extra 200mm or so of extra butt onto the original 7ft6in blank, making it just a whisker over 8ft, with the joint being just under the reel seat.
This made for a far faster action rod, and way way easier to just snap one-handed casts off. As soon as I could get it into action in the tropics again, back at Zipolo Habu in the Solomon Islands, the rod proved to be just The Beast.
...
Day one, cast one, bidda-bang, bidda-boom.
... note the shorter butt section, with the reel dropped, making the casting length of the now 8ft rod ever better. Add the little Penn Conquer 5000 reel, 20lb line and the R2C bubble pop popper, and this was the sweetest, deadliest, popper and stickbait set I have had for small to medium size fish.

.. and now it worked the small stickbaits like this R2C Wideglide, just perfectly.

While I would not recommend such a blank for massive GTs or big kick-ass kingies here in NZ, for more moderate size fish, such as  these...

that rod is WORKING it, man!

...sorting out 13kg Giant Trevallies like this...

...or this....

...or even this thumping 15kg fish.....
...I really have to say I love this rod.
How much do i like it? Well, just the other day I was over in Rotorua, picking up my SECOND beautiful rod , to give me a matched pair... so that now I no longer have to fight with everyone else in the boat who wants to "have a go" with my beaut baby!
Now, I'm not sure of the politics of all this, but if you want to access these blanks, or have kilwell make one of these rods (or indeed any customised rod), then contact Nagged here by PM, and they can arrange for you to get the rod you want via your local retailer. You can go there, get it made to measure for you, however you like, and the finished product can be then sold to you via your nearest or favourite sports store. I think that is how it works. Expect to pay about $650 for such a rod..., these are not cheapo nastios here guys, these are some of the latest, greatest rod blanks available anywhere in the world, and made right here in Kiwiland!
Anyhow, I just thought I would share with you guys my thoughts on these awesome new Xantu nano-tech rod blanks from Kilwell. What you do with the information now, well that is up to you guys.

Nice report CA!