The Top Chatterbait Rods at Omnia | Polish Pete

Okay, folks, we're here with another comparison video. This time it's with the chatter bait. So we got a lot, a lot of requests in about different actions and styles of rods, materials of rods, price points of rods, techniques, specific rods, and how to test them against each other. We're still kind of figuring out the best way to do that efficiently, time-wise, and how to pick the rods, so we're not favoring any one rod or anything like that. So we picked our most popular chatter bait rods kind of by price point and all that, like fishing report information that Brad got for us and all that, so we're gonna be comparing. I will preface that by saying, neither of these two, since they're both new, we're on that list, but I grabbed these two for a reason. Brett Heit is the guy who really brought the jackhammer to lighten the United States. Brett Heit and Marizo Shimizu, the Japanese angler, they're both on the name of the jackhammer package, and for good reason, they both helped in the design of the jackhammer, and obviously Brett Heit won a bunch of tournaments on the thing right away, really high-level, major tour wins with the jackhammer, and he's been kind of the face of the jackhammer for as long as I remember the blade of jigging, even getting popular with Brett Heit, and he designed some rods for them. This one being the latest one on the scene, that new combat sticks here coming in at 229. This is a $7, $3, $229 coming in. This is a $7, $3 heavy power glass rod. So it's a moderate action, as you can imagine, slow moderate, they call it, but it's a heavy power. This rod came in at, I believe it was 6.4 ounces. We waited our 6.5 ounces, excuse me. That's not light, right? But it does feel like they did a better job with this one than the previous generation of balancing it out a little bit. It still feels, we'll see once I get a reel on it here, like it's a little tip heavy, but that's what you're gonna get with a lot of glass rods. Then you've got this one here. This is the super combat stick. This is my personal rod, actually. I got this rod as a gift from some friends. This one's coming in at $450, $449 to be exact. So this is a more pimped out version, if you, so be, of the combat stick. In the same power and action, this is a seven, three heavy power, moderate action. This has obviously more beautiful aesthetics to it. This is much more understated. I will say for myself, I tend to lean towards the understated style rods. I think these new combat sticks, especially the spinning models, in my opinion, are absolutely beautiful. I like the understatedness. I like the little green hits they have on it, the little green aluminum pieces on the rod, and the green and the silver wraps in them. I think they look really pretty and rich. We're the super combat stick here. This is your Ferrari looking rod. Obviously, I can't just put a normal reel on this. I'm gonna have to put one of my spend your reels on it or get a spend your reel for it. But carbon fiber grips on this one here, beautiful rod. We're gonna bend them both and see how they do. And we're gonna put them up against our most popular chatter bait rods, which gets into the argument about fiberglass, first graphite rods, price points of rods, all that kind of stuff. But our contenders in this will get to next, but we'll start off by just bending the two different models of Brett Heights combat sticks here from Evergreen USA. All right, we're back. Now I got the seven three heavy glass slow moderate. Jackhammer rod in the combat stick, the new Evergreen combat sticks and the sexy green color. Got it paired up as always with all the rods, pretty much I've been doing with these little 80 to two loads of mine. So balance wise, it's still a little tip heavy and this is extremely slow moderate, as I said. As you see, this thing bends way, way down. So this is going to be a really traditionally super slow graphite rod. So your landing percentage should go through the roof as requested by all the blade of jig anglers. I mean, the blade of jig, you really do want the fish to get the jig really good, and get it back deep in their mouth to get your landing percentage up. You are a lot of times catching them. A lot when these guys developed these things, they were catching them around heavy, heavy vegetation and they wanted to get those fish in the boat because they were losing a lot of them and setting the hook a little too fast and too hard and losing the fish a lot more in the fight and the grass. So that's why the glass rod. This thing does have a lot more power than I would imagine it would have had for being such a slow moderate action. That's me just bending my wrists a little bit, like as hard as I can, just bending my wrists there like that. And it's hard to get it bent all the way over the way you will on your hook set. So a lot more power than I would have imagined after the initial just load up of the rod. So you're going to be able to set the hook with this thing, which is nice. It gives me a lot of confidence anyway. The big thing too is you'll be able to clear the grass off of it. Like I said, this one's coming in pretty hefty weight at 6.8 ounces, but that's because of the fiberglass. But I am impressed with the action of the rod big time. This feels like a more refined glass rods than a lot of the ones that I've picked up lately. So kudos to Evergreen on this one. Let's check out the spendy one now, the super combat stick. This one's actually the one that came in a little heavier than its much less expensive brother in the combat stick. This one came in at 6.8 ounces. So this one's a little bit heavier and I'm going to tell you right now, hands down, feels way lighter. And obviously a lot of you know why that could be balanced. We must have transferred a lot of the weight into this carbon fiber back end of the rod because this one does feel quite a bit lighter in hand by quite a margin. That's all due to balance. You hear a lot of rod snobs harp on that quite a bit and it's a very real thing. I can tell you right now between these two rods, it's pretty crazy. So this one is quite a bit lighter for hefty hefty price. Go ahead and load it up. And yeah, I'm going to have to tighten the drag up on this one than this real here, but load this one up and whoo. It is the same, very similar action as to be expected with fiberglass, moderate slow action there. You get a hookset in this one, yeah. Let me just bend my wrist there. It's very, very similar action to the combat stick, the other combat stick. The blanks are performing remarkably similarly, at least they feel so in my hand anyway. Hopefully that's the way it looks on the bend there. But this one feels a lot more alive. It feels a little crisper and it should be, right? It's $450 and it is sexy looking. These, both of these rods, like I said, were designed by Brett Heit and he's a really cool guy with a lot of success with the chatter bait, especially with the jackhammer. So if you're in the market for a primo, primo chatter bait rod, you got to take a look at both these evergreen combat sticks, the super combat stick and the regular. And now we're gonna go through the other ones that are our best sellers here at Omni-Ephishing. All right, back with another contender in our chatter bait head to head. We've already seen those evergreen combat sticks and those were obviously some pretty sweet rods there. Next up is our most popular chatter bait rod, as far as our consumer feedback we get, sales volume, also fishing report of data that we got from Brad. Whole bunch of information coming around and we do hear about this one a lot. And this would be the glass 7.2 medium heavy, moderate action Shimano X-Bri. Coming in about 280 bucks, this thing seems like a really good value when you wanna talk about weight savings, okay? This one came in at 4.7 ounces. So that's quite a bit lighter than the other ones. Now we're using our own scale. I can't tell you if our scale's better than the other scales people weigh them on, but at least everything's on the same scale, right? Just like when we wave fishing in a derby. Everything's on the same scale. So either way, this thing came in quite a bit lighter and it feels quite a bit lighter in hand as well. But it also feels a bit softer too. I know there's some other moderate action rods in the X-Bri.D series that get up heavier in power. So I think there's a more popular the chatter bait models in the X-Bri.D family that might have more power to be more comparable to the jackhammer rods from Evergreen there. This one does feel like it's a little lighter power, but I'm gonna find out here in a minute and we bend it. But that definitely, this feels like a more finessy chatter bait rod, more of an open water chatter bait rod, sparse cover chatter bait rod versus the other two. But we're gonna find out more when we go over here and we bend it. So coming in our lightweight champs so far, the Shimano X-Bri.D 7.2 medium heavy glass. So we're back with the Shimano 7.2 medium heavy glass rod. Lightweight king, as you know, as so far. I keep saying that but we haven't gotten through all the rods yet. Actually, there's one that's probably gonna beat it. That's right behind me if any of you are spying. But I'm gonna bend this thing up and yeah, it definitely bends a lot easier, loads up a lot easier than those evergreen combat sticks did in the heavy powers. But I'm gonna be honest, it's not as big a difference as I expected from the feel of the rods. I thought this thing would feel like a crank bait rod. It still feels like you could set the hook with single hook baits. Maybe not a three quarter ounce or a one and a quarter ounce jackhammer rod where you're doing the offshore stuff. But it definitely, so it's not as powerful, but it definitely feels like you could still stick and move the chatter bait on the thing. I can see why so many people would rant and rave about this rod being so great for a chatter bait if you're into glass rods because this thing does not feel like a glass rod in hand. I've done separate video on this rod as well when we're doing the X-pride family and I'll tell you that it's popular for a reason. This whole family is popular for a reason. So pretty impressive stuff here so far. So in our head to head so far, we got the combat sticks that are heavy powers and this thing coming in at a medium heavy power is a really lightweight, really crisp and alive feeling rod. Almost feels as crisp and alive as that super destroyer, but much a little less power than that rod. So far, that's what we got. Let's check out our next contender in our chatter bait series. Okay, we are back with another one of our contenders in our chatter bait head to head and we've got one of the most popular rods of all time when it comes to the blade of jig and that is the standard core candle to two little rods and the seven four heavy bladed jig rod. Now this rod might do a little bit better here at Omnia Fishing than in other places due to the fact that our guy Seth, Seth fighter who's an Omnia angler absolutely lives and dies by this rod for a whole bunch of techniques even outside of the chatter bait rod. He loves this rod. I've fished with him quite a bit or at least I used to fish a lot more. Now try to do it as much as possible and we end up picking up this rod quite a bit. So we use it a lot for a lot of different techniques but mostly a bladed jig, offshore bladed jigs even like the three quarters and the one and a quarter ounces. It's got enough power to do a lot of stuff. It's a very versatile rod. It does unmistakably feel like a glass rod. You know, it's a great price point, 150 bucks. So this thing's a steal for the money and the performance of the rod is way above its pay grade. It's a much higher performing rod than the price would indicate. And I think you'd find that out all over the internet doing your own research from lots of different people but it does feel like a glass rod. There's no mistaking it. You're not picking up a graphite model. You're picking up a traditional fiberglass rod, little fatter, little heavier. We're gonna go bend it and see how she does. Okay, back with the bladed jig rod from the DYWA to tool a lineup, just the standard cork handle models. I already talked about the killer price point in this rod, it's a $150 rod with performance way above that $150 mark, as I've said before. It is Glaetech material, which is DYWA's glass material. Feels like it for sure. I've got a little finessy kind of reel on here, the little tool a '80s I talked about a lot that I got last year. So it probably would aid to have a little bit bigger reel on there, which you probably would want anyway with a chatterbait. It does palm really nice. Feels really good on this rod. But it is a little tip heavy that way, but like I said, for the price, pretty impressive stuff here. This rod did come in at 6.4 ounces. So it's definitely not on the lighters into the scale so far, but it's also not the heaviest of all the rods, it's right up there with some pretty spendy rods. But like I said, this one's got a history of winning a bunch of money. I think even Seth won a truck with this rod, so it's a really impressive rod. I'm gonna go ahead and load it up. And yeah, just like a lot of rods in that. It does surprisingly pull back up in that tip section a little bit more than the other ones. By that I mean, as you can see, the action of the blank is definitely pulling all the way down like moderate action, but it's not as extreme a bend. If I bend it with just my wrist, I can see that it's definitely a little stiffer than I would expect it to be. It's of the rods, even giving it a lot of power, I'm gonna do a hard hook set with this thing. It's got some significant backbone if you really lean into it hard. So I could see why single hook bait, blade of jig rod, this thing would come in. I would say, if you blindfolded somebody and you didn't see the prettiness or the price points and stuff on rods, this rod you could see why it's such a popular one for the money. It doesn't feel like a $300 rod, but it probably fishes like a $300 glass rod. It's definitely got what you look for in fiberglass for a pretty good price point. Just don't look for it to be the sensitivity king out there. It's definitely built for a purpose, and that's what it does. So coming up next, we're gonna test out some more rods in our chatter bait challenge. All right, I'm here with one of, another one of the most popular chatter bait rods we have here. This one comes from a lot of customers, just yapping our ears off about this one a lot. That would be the Dobbins Champion 736. So this one is a moderate action rod. It is fiberglass. This is a glass rod, and it comes in at 5.5 ounces. So this is on the lighter scale of our rods here in the bed contest. And let me tell you something, it feels like it. It feels extremely light for being a heavy powered glass rod. So far, all of our glass rods we've been in this series have been heavy powers, except for one, the X-bride being that medium heavy, and that one being the most lightweight. But it was a lighter power. There is a heavy version of that rod, but I got told by a whole bunch of people that just test the medium heavy. So this one is a heavy in the Dobbins here, and we're gonna bend it and see how this one compares to, it's heavy weighted brothers there in this chatter bait test. Okay, back with this Dobbins 736, so it's a seven foot three heavy power glass chatter bait rod. I have thrown this rod before. Jacob the works here's got this rod. It is a nice rod. I like full court grips. I've talked about that a lot on here. It is an impressive rod in hand after picking up all these chatter bait rods. Let's give it a bend. And this one's bending a lot more like a lot of the heavy power ones from Evergreen. And even that medium heavy power is gonna cut that same bend that the Shimano had. What's weird is that Titula seemed to pull back a little bit more, that tip section didn't seem to bend as much just in the middle. This one, the tip section bends as well. So this is more of a true glass bend to it. It does feel a little bit more balanced, not perfectly balanced, it's still a little tip heavy. It's glass. I do have a really light reel on, I wanna point that out. You put a bigger reel on this thing. This thing feels like it would balance out with a heavier reel, honestly, it's close. I do have that little 80 to tool on here, but power. This is a heavy power. And with a little bit of wrist pressure there, it feels really heavy, a lot heavier than I was expecting that to feel, to be honest with you. It's pretty stout, actually. Let me get a hooks in this thing. When you really crack on it, it bends. It goes right past that tip and bends into the middle section, which is apparently what you want with fiberglass for sure. And when you're fighting that face, you're definitely using the whole rod, which is the idea behind glass. But if you did wanna clear it with some grass and really just kinda impart some action on the rod or anything like that, you definitely could do it with just your wrist. This is a really crisp feeling rod. I can see, there's a lot of Dobbins fans out there for a reason. I do build great rods for the money. I don't remember the price point off the top of my head, but Matt'll help me out with that. We just need to test one more rod, and we've got all of our most popular rod models here at Omniafishing, Benton the Board. Looking forward to hearing from you guys that you wanna see and what chatter bait rods we might've missed so far. Time to spice things up a little bit and spice them up in a big, big way. You think that's super destroyer, sorry, super combat stick. We bent earlier in this chatter bait head-to-head, was expensive. They got this one. This is the NRX, BJR, the Bladed Jig rod, the 7-4, fast, medium-heavy graphite rod. So absolutely nothing I talked about in all the other previous bends applies to this rod, apparently. When G-Lumus makes a chatter bait rod, they just go the opposite way everybody else went, other than length, obviously. But weight-wise, this is our winner, and you gotta imagine it would be 4.2 ounces. Right away, though, that made me think of what an absolute steal that X-Bride was at 4.7 ounces being fiberglass. I don't care that it was underpowered. I might've even, you know, if people are running the heavier version more than I realize, okay, 'cause it did feel a little softer than the other rods so far, but man, that thing's light. This thing, however, feels like a dream come true in your hands, and that's what you've heard about it, what do you say about the NRX rods? Pretty incredible rods here from G-Lumus. Why they go fast action instead of moderate? I'm sure that's because of people like myself, right? I tend to like to feel the bait coming through the cover. I like to feel that blade crashing on the head, which you still do with a fiberglass rod. But I like to feel the bite. I like to know I got even a little piece of grass on it. I like to feel all that stuff, and get a good hard hook set on 'em, especially when I'm fishing far away from the boat. But I also don't fish for money for a living. You know, losing a $10,000 fish is a big damn deal, and I'm sure all the bladed jig puris cringe in the here that this is graphite and a fast action. But I think there's people at G-Lumus who know what they're doing, so let's bend this thing and see what the difference is between a $650 graphite blade and jig rod is, and a fiberglass $150 blade and jig rod. Let's go bend it. All right, we're here with that NRX blade and jig rod. After holding glass rods the whole time, this thing obviously feels pretty damn incredible. It's what you want a rod to feel like, right? Hence why people pay the big bucks for the NRXs. I'm gonna give it a bend here, and I'll tell you right now, that is absolutely bending a lot more moderate than fast. Now it does even say on here, fast, medium heavy. So, you know, when I just impart action on it with my wrist, you are getting a faster action, just the tip wants to bend there on the rod. When I bend it, just, you know, that is definitely a fast action. When I really load the rod up and give it all the power, it definitely bends past that fast action portion of the blank pretty easily, to be honest with you. So, is it fast action or is it moderate action? I would lean more towards the fast, moderate action. Because of the fact that fighting the fish, you're definitely using a moderate action rod, as you can see, but setting the hook or imparting action on the rod, or it's a little faster than a moderate or a glass power rod. It definitely could be fishes, in my opinion, this is much more of a blade of jig rod than I thought it was, one just by reading the blank and picking it up. I, full disclosure, have never fished with this rod. I've fished with a couple of different interactions of my friends, mostly spinning rods. I haven't used a ton of the casting rods other than some of the mag-mass rods, the jig fishing and stuff like that. So, moving bait rods, I haven't touched an NREX, and I can see why people love them. This would be a fun rod to fish with. Incredible that it's not as fast as I pictured it being. It actually bends a lot more like a moving bait rod than I thought. So, to finalize with the NREX here, beautiful rod. This thing absolutely would be, I'd be proud to own this thing as my chatter bait rod. Little steep, it's 650 bucks for this guy, but hey, if you got it, you should buy it. This thing is really sweet. I can see why there's such big fans of the NREXs. It's spring while we were shooting this video in Minnesota, so that's why I still have a flannel on, and it's time for red chatter baits to get out there. I don't usually throw this color, but it's spring time, right? You're supposed to show this one, but this video was all about the chatter bait, or this is the Jackhammer version, but I'm talking all chatter baits. Those are rods that our whole team here voted as the most popular ones, whether it would be by just your tournament anglers, opinions, sales data, fishing report data that we do get here quite a bit of. Those are why we picked those ones. If there's models out there that you think we miss that are superstars out there in the chatter bait world, please let us know in the comments below whether or not we don't carry them in omnifishing. I'd like to know, and also, just to see if there's some we should be hitting on and doing more videos about, because by no means is this the end of the chatter bait discussion. I think it's quite interesting to see that there's different powers, different actions, different opinions on how to fish the chatter bait. Like I said, I had to start it up, kick it off with the evergreen stuff, because let's give them a little bit of credit for kind of revolutionizing this bait, this technique, making it the big deal that it is. So stay tuned for more information about rods from our rod bending wall here. Stay tuned for more information from us on rod actions and powers, weights now, we're gonna figure out a good way to get you back all that weight data as well. Says we compare and bend and test more rods here at omnifishing. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)