First Fish with Daiwa 63 UL Italian Special

[Alphahawk]

Went over to the city pond today and netted 50 trout.....all in the 14-16 inch range. Been thinking how to best describe this rod. First out of the gate this rod fishes different than anything I have ever used. Since I only own the one AGS rod I do not know if the feeling I get is from fishing a rod with AGS guides....or is it from the blank. I suspect it is both. The blank is extremely rigid for a UL rod...but when you hook up it goes into a nice bend. This rod is fast...I would even say very fast. It gets to the meat of the blank quick. It cast 2.5 gram like a dream. I also fished a 3 gram spinner and while it did well you get the feeling you are at the max for this rod. Of course the rod is rated 0.5 gram to 3 gram so this is no surprise. Hook ups are great.....the fish just hook themselves. Of course I was using a Presso Eve spoon with Saq Sas hooks. A fish sniffs those hooks and he is done for. The spoon I was using had a barbless hook. Couldn't believe I did not lose a single fish due to the barbless hook. When fishing my other rods I would always lose several with the barbless hooks. Had it paired with a 2021 Presso reel spooled with Lemon Ester at 2.3# test. I also tried the rod out with a Daiwa Ballistic FW 1000 spooled with Twitch Master 3# test nylon. Rod just cast like a dream with both setups. I did not try any lighter offerings as I was catching fish and just did not want to mess with success....LOL. I have been wanting an AGS rod for years and now that I own one it will not be my last. We all talk about balance on a rod and all my rods balance well. But this one, paired with either reel, is on another level. While you cannot horse a 15 inch trout with this setup you can steer them with just a flip of the wrist one way or the other. This is probably the most crisp rod I have fished. It's hard for me to articulate exactly the feel you get from using this rod but as I said earlier it is unlike anything I have ever fished. I am very anxious to get into some bluegill and crappie with this rod. Of course to tell you the truth I bought this for bluegill fishing....LOL. This rod would not do well fishing in current. I may try it in the Little Red though when they are in a no flow situation. If LvSpinfisher reads this maybe he can speak to some of my observations. Always good to have max input on gear.


Regards

[SuperDave336]

Good report on the rod. Glad it’s living up to your standards. Sounds like you had a fun and enjoyable day breaking the new rod in. Thanks for sharing.

[LVSpinfisher1]

Wow, 50 fishes on your first outing with the new Presso Ags. I can only dream of having a pond like yours my side of the woods. All envies aside, Alpha, your observation is what I've encountered when fishing with the only 1.2 g spoon i have just to replicate and experience what the rod was designed for: a competition Area pond fishing. My thoughts are very similar in that it balance well, cast well ( ML-s/ solid tip) and a joy to fish with. The rest is hard to explain just by comparing to lower end and heavier ultralight rods. Who knows, I might just retract my comment about this Presso Italian Special being my last JDM purchase...lol.

[JUNGLEJIMJIGS]

Great review and day on the lake, those trout were hungry. They really put on a show. From the looks of the tails looks like they were stocked recently. Did many jump? Out of about 150 trout I've caught this fall only had one jump multiple times.

[BobC]

Nice report and beautiful fish. Thanks!
Bob

[Alphahawk]

Great review and day on the lake, those trout were hungry. They really put on a show. From the looks of the tails looks like they were stocked recently. Did many jump? Out of about 150 trout I've caught this fall only had one jump multiple times.

Not sure when the last stocking was but they have been stocking for about 2 months now. This year they have stocked a lot of golden rainbows from Ava, MO. I've yet to catch any. They are tagged and if you catch one you get to enter a contest for a free guide trip on the Little Red River with a guide from Trout Magnet's Sore Lip'Em All Guide Service. If I do catch one I will forgo the prize as I'm friends with all those guys and I don't need to take a guide trip away for someone who could really use it. But to the question of jumping. Yes a lot of them did jump and I kept thinking I'm going to lose fish. Shocked I did not lose the first one. It's easy to stay in contact with the fish using this rod. But I need to switch out a lot of my barbless hooks with the micro barbed hooks.

Regards

[TXPanfisher]

How do you rate this rod vs. the eradicator?


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[Alphahawk]

How do you rate this rod vs. the eradicator?


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This is going to be hard but I’ll do my best. This rod is very rigid. In fighting 14 inch trout, or really any fish you catch, the Eradicator will protect the line better as it is much softer. The Daiwa allows you to steer the fish though much more than the Eradicator. It cast much better than Eradicator. The Daiwa rod recovers very quickly. As the Japanese call it, no blurring with this rod. It is every bit as steely if not more so. I was texting with someone today and they asked me about the rod and I told them if I had plenty of money I’d buy all the Italian Special’s I could find. I took it out again today for only 20 minutes. That’s all the free time I had but caught two more trout. I’m in love with the rod and am considering selling off some rods to acquire maybe one more of the UL and one each of the other models. Had a guy by my place about 2 months back and he wanted to buy a couple of my UL rods. Told him I didn’t want to sell any. That thought process has now changed. Out of the 2 dozen rods I have left I know how each one fishes. They all fish different. This Presso is just on another level.

Regards


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[LVSpinfisher1]

I second to Apha's observation as well! Besides rod actions, the Daiwa's own SVF Compile NanoPlus blank technology and its proprietary resin coating, X45 Full Shield outer layer gives the rod a more finished look compare to most JDM high end rods using Toray NanoAlloy bare blanks. I'm very convinced its worth the $100 over most vendor would sell the Abu Eradicator at this point.

[Shru63]

randy,
do you happen to know much about the 61mlf version?
wondering if its tubular tip as well and fast action as well.
also kind of wondering how the 63ul version stacks up to the evergreen short cut.
i do absolutely love the 63ul though, bought mine from italy.