I am looking to build a heavy Jigging rod, I have made a couple of posts gathering info about this rod. First I asked about the blanks and got feedback about a Clastar 760L cut from the butt to 5' 8". Another recommendations was a Gusa URS65XH?

I was looking for a Super Seeker with a similar weight range as the Calstar 30-80? I found a 40-60, and a 30-50, but nothing with the range of the Calstar? Is it because of the S glass with Carbon fiber offering lighter rods, can't produce the range?

I just finished building a Super Seeker and love the lightness, so I though tif I could find one with comparable range it would be a great option for the jigging rod.

Any other info that can be offered about grips, guide size, spacing etc, would be appreciated as this is my first rod of this type.

Thanks,

Jigging for what? Any other information would also be assistive.

The rod will be used with a Shimano Stella (spinning reel) that is capable of producing up to 65 lbs of drag. The rod and reel should be match as much as possible. It will be used on long range trips, and possibly on a Australian adventure or two. The Japanse jigging rods are around $950.00, but I know very little about them. Shimano makes one that is very small diameter that has a huge range form like 30-100. Simon had posted on another thread that he uses a Grafighter 760L cut down to 5'8" from the butt, and it was his fovorite, and many others were fond of that combination as well.

I am not opposed to the Grafighter, but after feeling the light weight of the Super Seeker it seemed that if I could find a similar SS blank that would work I would lean towards that.

I am looking for any information about grips reel seet, guide size and type, guide spacing etc....... Everything will help!

Thanks!

what OAL are you going for? i just did a SS 700H spin and compared to the calstar 700XH i thought the calstar was lighter, both with plenty of power. i have the URS65xh conv wrapped..its a great rod. i also think the GUSA Wahoo Jr., might be a choice.. the 760L i was going to do, it looked nice, but i found 2 other blanks i wanted to try, i belive they were CTS , (i dont have them here now) so the 760 got put off for a while.. for shorter rods. the Jigging master 300g-350g and 400g i am going to try a spin rod next week

NERBS

I think you will find the Calstar will be lighter then any Seeker you will find. The Graphiter is a composite blank ( a fiberglass tip into a graphite mid and butt section). It has got a real nice tip for 300 to 500+ gram jigs. It's also got a nice action for bouncing jigs ( not as fast as most Seekers). I purchased to Seeker CTS55H and the CJB65H (for jigging) real nice blanks just not as good (IMHO) as the GF760L for deep water jigging.

PS: I ment to say the calstar will be lighter then any seeker suitable for jigging, and bouncing jigs is long or short jerk and reel.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/29/2007 12:26PM by Simon Oakley.

Sorry I have not seen the Super Seekers. But beleive me that the made up Calstar is comparable to the weight of the high end Japanese jig rods (not much heavier at all) when you get into the PE8 - 80lb rods

a cut down 760L may even be a lighter than the JM ..but between those two choices..the JM is far better choice

NERBS

As far as OAL, I am not sure what is best. I was leaning towards the 6' length. As Simon had posted in a a different thread he had cut his 760L down from the but to 5' 8". I have a lack of knowledge about these rods, and the guy who I am building it for is fond of the Super Seekers. I thought Carbon Fiber is suppoesed to be lighter and stonger than Graphite. I was under the undestanding that Graphite adds great strenght and weighs very little, but the strenght linear as opposed to Carbon fiber which is multi-directional.

I may be explaining it wrong, but this was the info I was told, so I was looking for a Super Seeker that would fit the size and range, but I did not see one listed. Maybe I will stick to the 760L or the jig master.

Thank you all who replied. Any additional info or insight anyone else might add is appreciated.

The Carbon Fibre and Graphite are the same. Some companies call it Carbon Fibre some call it Graphite. Although you can get many different types of Carbon Fibre. I know that the Jigging Master Terminator (grey colored) blanks are made solely from a Carbon called 40T high tensile elastic Carbon Fibre (Graphite) and from mamory the walls of the 400gram blank are about 5mm thick. The walls of the Calstar are a lot thinner so the weight between the JM and the Calstar are comparable.

how do the Terminator blanks compare to the regular JM? i have not seen the new ones YET. do you know what blank they are using in the powerspell rod? if nothing better comes along i may have to try the terminator blanks. but the regular JM i have i REALLY like

NERBS

(I think) the JM Terminator blanks are now the regular blanks and the JM Classic are the high end. IMHO there is not much differance except in price. The Max drag you can put on a Terminator 400Gram is 27kg and the Max (they say) you can put on a 400 gram Classic is 30+kg that is a lot of drag 95% of poeple would not be able to sustain that kind of drag. Apparently they are working on a new blank that will give the performance of a Classic with the cost a little higher then the Terminator.

Simon..have you actually held and compared both types of JM blanks?

NERBS

As far as blanks go I hesitate to make a recommendation. You might like one blank for the same reasons another guy hates it. I've used the Calstar blanks ever since I stopped being able to get my hands on Sabres, I've never had any complaints about my Calstars. My #1 jig stick is a Calstar T670XH, outfitted with a VS 300. I stress enough the importance of a good set of guides on any jigging rod, I learned the hard way and had to throw a brand new set of guides on a rod that was only 2 weeks old. I made the mistake of putting a set of BMNAG's on the blank to start off with, they pretty much exploded after about 3 AJ's. I replaced those guides with MNSG's and have had no problems since. If you send me an E-mail I'll send you the guide spacing and whatever other info you might want. Also Van Staal makes a jigging blank that might be exactly what you're looking for, but I have no experience with their blanks so I can give you any other info on it.


rawkandroll74@aol.com

Hi Paul
No I have not held both blanks only the terminator. That is about to change I have a couple of different blanks in the classics coming. So I will let you know how they go. Give me an email I will let you know more

Can someone give me a link to where the Jigging Master blanks are sold? Thanks.