The one area that seems to continually get better in fishing tackle is rod design. Things like EVA foam, titanium guides, micro guides and more continue to raise the bar in terms of what can go into a rod to make it lighter which ultimately is done to make it more sensitive. And testing rods also happens to be one of our favorite activities at Wired2Fish. We test them on and off the water and even break a few in the process. But if we write about it, you can be assured we’ve used it a lot on the water first.
We recently got to test the new Halo Fishing Twilight Series HFTS76MHC 7-foot, 6-inch medium heavy rod. From a very broad first overview, the rods weigh very little, have stellar cosmetics with black and silver and red accents throughout the rod, gripped comfortably in our hands. Believe it or not, removing the plastic gave us the “WOW†factor as the rod was unduly burdened with it on.
They are balanced nicely, and with the lightweight we thought it appropriate to test them with an Abu Garcia Revo MGX. For our first tests, we spooled up with Gamma 16-pound Edge Fluorocarbon. We decided to test it with fairly light Texas rigs to start. We used a 1/4-ounce Eco-Pro Tungsten Bullet Weight, Mustad Extreme Flipping hook and a Zoom Brush Hog or Gene Larew Mega Ring Tube to put it through the rigors pitching grass and wood.
The rod handled well with this setup. Surprisingly we could throw the baits very long distances and feel every rock as we drug it along the bottom. The rod is long but it didn’t seem to add any fatigue to a normal day of fishing. And having another few inches on the a long cast really made hooksets a lot easier.
The Halo HFTS76MHC has plenty of backbone, but the tip allows the rod to load up on hooksets giving better hook penetration and good control when playing fish. Even in matted grass, the hook penetrated well and fish were pulled to the top sometimes with a pound or two of coontail attached.
Halo uses a modified microguide system with the first guide a bit larger tapering down to a very small tip guide. We have been very impressed with microguide rods castability and the Halo continued to impress. It pitches accurately with great precision and control.
The only negative we have seen to microguides is when ice or cottonwood fuzz is present. The fibers of the cottonwood fuzz balls up in the guides and casting is impossible. It’s like trying to pull a pair of tighty whities into the reel.
We really like the feel of the EVA foam handles too. The reel seat and braid capable guides match well on this rod and are part of the equation for a lighter rod.
Halo Fishing currently manufactures 13 models, from 6 feet, 6 inches to 7 feet, 11 inches. However one of its most attractive features may be its price range. The rods price between $139 to $149, depending on length. With great asthetics, power and action to cast and control fish and a great price range, we plan to see a lot more of these on the decks of bass boats this year.
To learn more about their products, visit Halofishing.com. To see more about the pricing and ordering, click here.
The Wired2fish Editors are avid anglers, fluent in fishing tackle knowledge and trends and we follow fishing results and news all over the country to provide really useful and timely fishing information to help a wide variety of anglers all over the country enjoy more and better fishing. We also aggregate great fishing information from other sources as well to keep anglers more informed about everything fishing.
