ajiking and lemax popping rods
Submitted by my03 on Sun, 2008-12-07 13:10
hey guy's im in the market for a affordable popping rod and stumbled across trhe lemax and ajiking ones,
I'm interested in the ajiking pro italy pop 8ft pe6
and the lemax gti 8ft 3 pe 8
I'm just wpondering if anyone has expereince with them and what the action on these rods are like? whats the quality of build and components, How do they stack up against shiano t curve or daiwa monster mesh?
Thanks
Ben Derecki
Posts: 1926
Date Joined: 10/10/07
Heads up on Lemax & Ajiking
Long time listener first time caller... lol.
I've been doing a bit of work with Lemax and Ajiking rods so I can tell you a bit about them... I haven't used the popping rods yet though so I can only give you what I've seen / heard rather than what I've experienced.
Lemax have got a couple of rods you could use, the GTi you've mentioned is a great heavy duty rod - Fuji SiC guides and heavy duty Fuji reel seat, when you pick it up you can feel it's not going to let you down. I'm not sure what you mean by 'affordable' but they go for about $500... some people would call that affordable, some cheap, some expensive lol.
The other Lemax rod which is significantly cheaper is the Grand Tournament Popping Rod, there's an 8'6" model which is suitable up to PE8. This one's got Fuji Hardloys on it and a Fuji reel seat and is a good quality rod for the price. I think Ryan was / is selling them in Oceanside. Anyway I know these rods do alright, there is a bloke who posts on Wangler who took one with him when he moved to the Maldives and he's pulled a lot of big fish in with it including a couple of big GTs up to 20kgs. It ended up breaking on a 30kg stonker (which he landed) but not before it had claimed a lot of scalps. No surprises. He was certainly happy with the performance. I've got a feeling he got it on the PE6 rod but Honsu will be able to correct me if I'm wrong as he sold it to him.
The Ajiking rods are a s.xy piece of kit. I'm sure they've got Fuji SiCs on them as well as a heavy duty Fuji reel seat so no problems with the components. The rods are nice and light and have a fair amount of biff built into them. I read somewhere about some Burmese guys (it's a S/E Asian brand) using them around oil rigs for big GTs so they must go well, they certainly feel like they should. I can't remember the price of these rods but they are pretty competitively priced... probably somewhere between the two Lemax rods. I think you can only get them at Angler's Spot in Willetton at the moment though... so depends on where you live.
Hope that helps?