As any reader might know, I’m a bit of a fan of one rod in particular from the ever expanding HTO rods available from Tronix fishing; namely the Rock Rover.
I own many high end rods from Smith, Apia, Yamaga Blanks and so on but, this little five piece pack rod just lives in the boot of my car.
Lure fishing for me aside from many other things is largely about convenience and fun and this is where the Rock Rover really lends itself. It is there literally ready to deploy but taking up no space for whenever an impromptu moment might arise.
This week though I received the original Rock Rovers supersession; the HTO Nebula Rock Rover.
The rod has been around a while but the original has been so good to me, I’ve caught hundreds of fish on it, large and small I resisted the upgrade out of superstitious thoughts of jinxing my fishing, but finally buckled.
On first impressions It was noticeably light which I liked but was unsure about the skeletal reel seat and what seemed like a long handle; I needed to try it.
I therefore popped out yesterday evening after work for an hour and a half to a new spot of the Suffolk Stour to give it a whirl.
Well straight away it just casts effortlessly, using a 1.4g Decoy Round Magic jig head and Keitech Easy Shiner I started catching small Perch straight away.
The rod is very sensitive and detecting bites was incredibly easy, especially when paired with some 0.8 PE Nebula braid.
I moved down the tasty, Reed strewn stretch picking up small Perch along the way, I then god a more savage take.
Not really what I was hoping for but a good opportunity to test the curve and reserves of the blank. Yep, a Pike.
Like the original Rock Rover, the Nebula is a Pack Rod that packs a punch. I was easily able to pull this lean fish from snags and the curve was such I maintained a solid hook set and bought this spirited fish to the net.
A very quick snap before release left me pretty pleased. I don’t much like catching Pike during the summer months in this water, it’s slow and low in the dissolved oxygen they very much need but they’re somewhat unavoidable.
I fished into Sundown, catching more Perch and the odd Small Chub of which I didn’t bother with Photos. Needless to say though, I am pretty pleased with this rod and look forward to racking up species with it. I’m not sure I will completely retire the older brother, but we shall see. I shall use the solid tip soon as that was in my opinion, the one thing that I wasn’t so keen on with the older variant.
I’ll report again soon.
Tight lines
