I'd love those rods - its just the money. jon li what do you think of the Daiko Hemingway HBGC-88TUNA. It looks like a cost effective alternative to those rods and seems to have the exact specs that I'd want. Whats Daiko's reputation like ie where would it fit relative to say the Daiwa rods?
Hi Sam ,
The best thing in choosing a rod is that you get to fondle it , swing it , feel the tip's vibration , bend it and weigh it , after all those you still have more to ponder about how the rod will behave while being casted with certain lures and then the sensation of strike , etc. and ultimately how the rod's back bone behaves when fighting the fish .
As for Daiko brand , they are a reputable blank manufacturer from Japan and would have given the product a benefit of doubt in any situation , myself not so sure about Daiwa GT rods for they seem to lack the " enthusiast " behind the product , GT popping is a highly specialized form of fishing and only a very few brands have enough underlaying principles to produce good GT rods .
Tuna popping is quite a new technique , unlike GT which will attack the biggest lure one throw into them , the biggest YFT may ignore all but the smallest lure one can cast onto them and the ability to cast these small lures but still have enough back bone to fight the YFT is paramount in choosing a good tuna rod , if the rod has enough power to handle extra then it's a bonus .
Tried Tenryu , not happy with the action . Zenaq has this tip vibrations which interfere with good casting , SevenSeas tend to be tip heavy and slow in action . Still a few to test but my benchmark for tuna rod is still TN87 .
Jon .
