Well after a bit of a horror week with a lot of work and commitments and then the requirement to go into work today I was very pleased when the weather cleared and I was able to get down to the beach to try the 12' Century LD SM with a few of my fixed spool reels. I feel that it will appeal to a number of fishermen looking for a rod of this length and also wanting to use either braid or mono over the rod.
The first reel that I loaded onto the rod was my Shimano Albrid loaded with Ultima Braid and casting the 100 gram weight. I had the reel in the high position using one of my own modified pipe whiches which enables the reel to be used in either the high or load mount.
The first part of the video shows the rod with the braid and as you can see it performed very well sending the lead out with no real effort in line with its longer sister the 13' which I have had for a while now.
Recovery of the rod was very pleasing and at now time did I feel that there were any issues. Casting OTG , or fishing Pendulum posed no issues at all.
The second part of the video is with the rod running my Daiwa Emblem Pro and 0.28mm mono , I was casting in both the low and high possitions with the 100 and 150 gram weights and also with a number of styles from OTG , to Pendulum to simple overhead thump.
http://youtu.be/w4NYUsXOVrEI also show howI use a threadine and use my thumb instead of my index finger to control the line. This is very usefull when the weather makes you fingers soft and prone to feeling the snatch when the rod loads up just before release.
I am liking this rod more and more and whilst I have taken some small snapper with it I am really looking forward to getting some of the better quality fish on it. Roll on Thursday when I head out for my next fishing session.
Hope that you enjoy the video .