Nick Moore | Wednesday, 20 April 2022
I’ve been trying out different rods to see which one will throw the furthest for me, and it was actually quite a revelation. Last week I mentioned that the stiffer rod always threw 1’ less for me, but when I did a back to back test, it proved to be the complete opposite! Now, I must say that the conditions weren’t great, but I did do 6 casts with a Sage Igniter 690-4 (the one I fish with often) and the new Igniter 990-4.
Here are the results of the test, I did the casts (one after the other) and it was quite surprising.
Sage Igniter 990-4: 137’ 08” 134’ 124’ 122’ 125’ 02” 124’ 02”
Average; 127’ 07”
Sage Igniter 690-4: 121’ 05” 120’ 120’ 121’ 04” 117’ (wind blew it sideways) 124’ 02”
Average; 120’.05”
The same line was used for all of the casts, a Ballistic Pro Performance #5, and the wind was relatively consistent, although it did change direction somewhat, and a cast did hit me at some point. Can you guess which one?
What I would add is the timing of the bigger casts. With the 690, it takes me a good half an hour to warm up before I reach my peak distances, however, with the stiffer rod, I’m reaching those bigger casts much sooner. I think the lack of the fighting butt on the 690 doesn’t allow me to have as much of a relaxed grip as the 990, as it slides off my forearm on the back cast, so this may be it. I’m going to continue to use the 990 from now on.
I’ve also been practicing with the accuracy targets, but I’m still not achieving a great score with them when the time limit comes on. I managed to get 57 points with a practice round, but when I did the same again (without moving the targets) I stay around 30, which is very disappointing. I got hand cramp with my HT690-4, so I have moved into using something much softer, the HT490-4. Much easier on the arm! I need to practice some more.
Tight lines