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TESTED: Samurai Kestrel KE-402-70 and MajorCraft Crostage CRK 864E
halfway along the rod it’s closer to the butt end. Kestrels come supplied in a neoprene rod bag which offers protection to the blank and components. The top section fills the length of the bag and the butt piece in a pouch on the side. Build-wise, Frogley’s hold nothing back with this range. Titanium-framed SiC guides with the K-style frame means that your line is looked after and wind knots are kept to a minimum. The distinctive feature of the build, though, are the grey, offset rings in the black fore- and rear-grip Hypalon. All of the rods in the Kestrel range have them, and if you pick up a Samurai with that pattern it should have a RRP of $449. What I liked • Classy rod bag. • Quality build. • Tangle-free K guides. • Titanium guides reduce weight. • Uplocking inset VSS reel seat a pleasure to fish with. What I’d change • I’d put a hook keeper on above the foregrip. • Does the bling catch you any more fish? Some people think a first-cast fish is bad luck. I’m not one of those anglers. First cast fish are great! Recently two of our contributors had the opportunity to review two of the specialised rods in the Frogley’s Offshore stable: the Samurai Kestrel KE-402-70 (Steve Morgan) and the MajorCraft Crostage CRK 864E egi rod (Kaspar Lenigas). Here’s a rundown on how these rods performed.
SAMURAI KESTREL KE-402-70
It’s not often that testing meets with success as instantly as happened with the Samurai Kestrel. QFM Editor Stephen Booth delivered the KE-402-70 to my desk one afternoon with the instructions to “try this out on some of those night-time threadfin you’ve been catching”. So I did. Matching it with a Daiwa Certate 3012 spooled with 12lb Unitika Silver Thread fluorocarbon, I tied on my favourite topwater – a 130mm OSP Bent Minnow. Now, that’s a big call. Those bent baits are ridiculously expensive. It physically hurts paying $36 a pop for them (yes, I pay for my baits – this one came from the Tackle Warehouse and I did get my 10% ABT member discount!), so I’m pretty protective of them. Only occasionally do I use a biteleader at the end of the straight-through fluorocarbon. It’s not often that you hook a salmon big enough in the Brisbane River to swallow a 130mm bait fully and if the lure is outside the mouth, these fish have a soft enough body to not damage the line – even relatively light 12lb. Fishing with my brother Tim, we stopped at the first location: a nice light/ dark line with plenty of current running. Tim mucked around tying a new lure on, and unfortunately for him there’s an unwritten fishing rule that ‘if you snooze, you lose’. Even though he hadn’t landed his first Brisbane night-time thready yet, I flicked the Bent across the current. After its second twitch on the light/dark
line, it disappeared in a decent swirl. Luckily, most of these fish swim upstream when hooked. It’s very handy, especially when fishing from the shore. After their initial shock, however, there’s a 50/50 chance that the second run may be downstream – and that’s exactly where this unit went. After about 20 seconds the Kestrel was really being put through its paces. Naturally, there was only one piece of structure in the river anywhere near me, and the salmon was heading right towards it. If I had been fishing from a boat I would have let fish run around it, back off the drag and then go in and untangle the mess, but the opportunity to do that from the shore is minimal. If the fish makes it around the structure, the chance of a $40 bait going AWOL increases exponentially, so there’s not much choice but to lock up and see what happens. There are only four things that could happen: 1. The line breaks. 2. The rod breaks. 3. The hooks pull out. 4. The fish turns around. Luckily it was a #4 happy ending. The rod and line remained intact, the fish swam away after some happy snaps, I kept my Bent Minnow and some tourists walking past were impressed with the size of the ‘catfish’ in the Brisbane River. Subsequently, the Kestrel has become one of the regulars for my night-time river raids. The casting distance is less with the fluorocarbon than braid, but I’m willing to sacrifice that for pulling fewer hooks with this soft mouthed species.
Technical
The Kestrel range is an evolution of the Frogley’s-designed Samurai rod range, and the entire Kestrel series is geared at bigger species in the estuary and bluewater. The model tested was the 7’0” model rated at 10-20lb line. It’s an asymmetric 2-piece, which means that instead of the join being
MAJORCRAFT CROSTAGE CRK 864E
A specialised egi rod is crucial to successful squidding as it has a precise and specialised action to work your jigs to entice the shyest of squid, but most importantly fight squid and absorb their lunges without tearing the squid jig prongs through their soft tentacles. I’ve recently been using the new MajorCraft Crostage CRK 864E egi rod and I can confidently say that I’m highly impressed with it. When I first laid eyes on the rod I noticed something very interesting: it’s a 4-piece squid rod which is pretty cool as most squid rods are 2
the jigs and the way the rod handled the squid during a fight. The rod has a beautiful soft tip and mid section to absorb the lunges of squid, but a slightly stiff bottom section. This low-down stiffness surprised me. I expected it might be an issue, because it was much stiffer than my other more expensive squid rods, but I didn’t drop a single squid out of the hundreds I caught on the rod. In fact, it felt like I had a little more control when fighting the squid with the stiffer bottom section, and I got better hook-ups from the strike as I got better prong penetration. When I was working the squid jigs I tried aggressive jigs of the rod as well as slow jigs. I found that no matter how big or small the squid jig was, the rod imparted a great darting action which really drove the shiest squid wild. With the stiffer bottom section I found the rod was able to work heavier jigs in deep water effectively and still be sensitive enough to feel the faintest touch of a squid (which can’t be done as effectively with most other squid rods on the market). Probably the most impressive thing I did with the rod was catch a 2kg tiger squid in Moreton Bay which is a pretty good achievement and my PB tiger squid to date. After using the Crostage CRK 864E for a while I knew it was good for more than just squid thanks to its heavier bottom section. I decided to tie on a few surface lures and soft plastics and try for some fish. You might think an 8ft rod is pretty long for fishing, but it’s actually great for land-based fishing or any application where you require a bit more distance. I managed to catch hairtail, squire, whiting, flathead, trevally and a few tarpon on the Crostage. The soft tip section gave the plastics and surface
Left: I was impressed with the action the Crostage imparted to the jigs. Right: The rod’s slightly stiff bottom section gives more secure hook-ups and better control when fighting the squid. pieces. This 4-piece rod gives you more options as it’s easy to travel with, coming in a nice carry case. It comes fitted with Fuji K guides to prevent guide wraps from wind knots, and I can honestly say I didn’t have one issue with the rod casting. I initially used the rod for squid using a variety of Yamashita jigs from 2.0-3.5. I was highly impressed with the action I got out of
lures a great action with minimal effort. The stiffer bottom section had great power to set hooks, even on fish with bony mouths such as tarpon. If you’re in the market for a specialised squid rod or general purpose travel rod, the CRK 864E is definitely worth looking at. It has a lot of great futures and is an exceptional rod for the money.
Please send contributions to: The Editor, Fishing Monthly Group PO BOX 3172 LOGANHOLME, QLD. 4129 nicole@fishingmonthly.com.au
JULY 2014
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