Big Country Fishing Rod

A six-inch swimbait weighs four ounces in the air and twice that on the hookset. A rod built for jigs will fold on both.

The Big Country is 7'10" of extra-heavy blank with a full cork handle, and both of those numbers are doing a job. The length gives you the arc to keep a big bait swimming and the leverage to move a fish that has decided otherwise. The full cork means you can tuck the butt into your forearm on a long day of throwing heavy — which is the difference between fishing swimbaits until dark and quitting at three.

It carries the Kistler sensitivity you would expect from a lighter rod, which is rarer than it sounds in an extra-heavy blank. Built by hand in Texas, limited lifetime warranty.

Specification

Who this is for, and who should look elsewhere

For: anglers throwing 4 to 10 oz swimbaits, big glides and wake baits, who have snapped or overloaded a heavy rod trying to do it.

Look elsewhere if: you are throwing anything under about three ounces. This blank will not load and you will lose casting distance and feel. For general heavy work — frogs, punching, big worms — the Helium in H or XH at $300 is the better and cheaper answer.

Big Country or Helium MAD

Both are 7'10". The MAD is a moderate action built to throw a range of weights and still punch grass; the Big Country is extra-heavy and single-minded about big baits. If swimbaits are a technique you use rather than the technique you fish, take the MAD.

Ships from the USA. Limited lifetime warranty.

Venator hunting — get into the hunt.