# ***** ELITE Custom exlite R - 1st impressions



## spooled1 (Sep 16, 2005)

This rod arrived today from the good people at Ebay. All up it cost me $30.20 delivered.
Basically it's advertised as a 4-8kg, 6'6" composite snapper rod with cork handles, 6 guides + tip and a powerful but bendy action. The color is silver and if you like silver rods you will appreciate that color.

When it arrived I tested the backbone by lifting the rod from the tip and balancing the weight on my other hand about a foot down. As suspected the guides and reel seat totally failed the backbone test like 99% of factory rods do. If they placed the components 1/4 turn to the left I'd be a lot happier.

I then stuck a reel on it and tested the lifting power and general action. Not bad. It's got a reasonable amount of lifting power. I'm not fully thrilled with the guide spacings when fully loaded but it'll do the job. During this test I noted more flex than I personally like from the top 200mm so I took a matching rod tip off a dead rod and removed the top 150mm (including 1 x guide and the tip guide). On the re-test, I was a lot happier with the curve and now it's a more practical 6'1" and has one guide less.

In a perfect world I would add 80mm to the foregrip. For a yak the butt section is a good length. The threadwork is thick, appears single bound and has a factory feel about it. Uneven epoxy matches nicely.

This will be one of my yak snapper rods so it'll be interesting to see how long it lasts. I'm pretty confident I'll get some mileage because I actually like the blank itself and think it's got some guts to it.


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## spooled1 (Sep 16, 2005)

Ay Gatesy,
From ages ago when I built a couple of rods, the rod building magazine said the loaded line should somehow curve smoothy through the guides. A real rod builder would know the best way to describe it exactly but sort of like the line in the guides flow with the natural load of blank.


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## johnny (Aug 12, 2007)

happy hunting and great post


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## kiwipea (Jun 17, 2008)

I bought a ***** Elite 5' 9" / 6-10 lb rod over ebay a few weeks back and matched it up with Tokushima 2000 reel from same ebay seller. Have fished with it twice and found it is quite good gear for me ( Mr Bean the second)
Have not tried any clever testing, but it did bend ok today when I hooked up to a 3.5kg salmon and I landed the fish without too much hurt for me or the fish.
So it's ok for a cheap yak rod and too many tears if something nasty happens.

kp


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## Evoids (Jan 10, 2009)

Might have to get myself one of these for bream. $30 is great for a uni student budget :lol:


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