Mike the Magpie’s, collection of rods, reels and lures is always growing. Each season brings an array of new rods, reels and lures, launched with both print and social media marketing to support them. Like other fishing magpies, Mike is attracted to the shiny new gear, and swoops to pick up a bargain.
At the beginning of the year, I was at my local Hunting and Fishing shop, ‘just looking’, when I came across a Daiwa TD 21TD Black Kohga 66HB-NZ rod in the new year’s sales.
I had an existing Daiwa bait caster reel and thought it would go nicely with the rod, providing me with a great inner Marlborough Sounds’ light combo for snapper, gurnard and blue cod.
The ‘Daiwa Kohga 66HBNZ is a one-piece rod suitable for 40g to 120g jigs. It is made from a very light, low profile graphite blank, which means it is very responsive, sensitive and casts further. The high tech specs listed on the Diawa website had me hooked.
The magpie could not resist and swooped.
So, how did the rod perform after nearly a season of use?
The Daiwa Kohga 66HB has performed extremely well. I have enjoyed using the rod and reel combo for some great all day fishing sessions. These next generation rods are noticeably light and thin. Set up with a small bait caster reel, it makes a great unit for fishing all day with light jigs.
Over the last nine months, I have predominantly been using jigs between 40gm and 80gm and have found the rod tip to be very sensitive and able to detect the smallest of bites.
I’m now getting used to the rods’ incredible flexibility, bending to previously unknown, and frankly, alarming angles compared to my previous traditional boat rods—as I discovered when I hooked and landed a small one metre shark in the late autumn. It showed just how much power in the mid-section these next generation of rods have and not to underestimate them. This small light rod and reel combo has become a favourite for all day jigging duties.
