Quote Originally Posted by SGT67 View Post
not wanting to start a war here but how do the JDM rods stack up against the G loomis brand? I have a number of GLX rods that were very pricey (in my world at least ) how do they add up to say an ice cube or banshee rod? It will be trash day soon so if I need to throw all these rods out and start over with buying new ones let me know quick ....LOL
Ok...here's the deal. The Loomis GLX trout is an excellent rod. I owned a couple a few years back....my sons now have them. JDM trout rods come in 2 varieties...and area rod and a stream rod. The Loomis is a fit somewhere between those 2 rods. A high end JDM area trout rod will be more sensitive than the Loomis. A high end stream rod would be a much closer fit to the Loomis. You cannot compare a Loomis trout rod to a high end ajing..mebaru rod..such as the Ice Cube in sensitivity...the Loomis will lose. But the Japanese will not use an ajing-mebaru rod to fish for trout. So if we stick with trout rods there are a lot of JDM trout rods that will be better than a Loomis trout rod. If you take the most expensive Loomis GLX...somewhere around $480 and look at what you can get out of Japan you have a big selection of rods that are better. Now I am talking about 2 piece rods as shipping a 1 piece rod is very expensive. The Japanese make 1 piece trout rods...not a lot...but they do make them....but for me a 1 piece UL rod is begging to be broken during transport. Some rods that come to mind in the $480 range...the Olympic Graphiteleader Super Bellezza...a far better rod than the Loomis. I could list more but there are many. As to the Banshee......which is an old design...Loomis has nothing like it so you can't compare. That's another thing...the Japanese have area trout rods in M.....ML.....L....UL...XUL....and SUL. Some even have XXUL. So it is hard to do direct comparisons...but for me JDM is the way to go. Name a major brand of UL rod and I have probably owned it over the past 14 years or so....including several custom rods. When I found the high JDM rods my searching was over in the USA. If you have not checked out this site take a look. Chris can articulate much better than me...a great resource. https://www.finesse-fishing.com/
Regards