I've been on a bit of a rod buying spree. While researching the Carabus/Diplomat Extreme I came across the Nano series rods. Since they were $120 to $130 less than the extreme I decided to order one to try out. I was hoping that it would be similar to the Extreme. I ordered the CARABUS NANO CNA-602XULS MGS. It is a solid tip XUL, they also have a tubular tip XUL. I went with the solid tip like the Extreme has.
I was going to take some pics comparing the two rods side by side, but it turned out to be a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. The pics I took weren't anywhere as good as the stock pics on the Abu Garcia website.
Carabus Nano CNA Rod – Abu Garcia® EU (abugarcia-fishing.eu) 57Grams
Carabus Extreme CEX Rod – Abu Garcia® EU (abugarcia-fishing.eu) 52Grams
The weights of the rods are very similar, the handles are different, the Nano has alconite guides except for the top guide that is torzite vs all torzite on the Extreme.
I took the Nano and Extreme over to the pond to try them out. I caught about 20 fish on the nano and 5 or so on the Extreme. Fishing them side by side you'd be hard pressed to tell a difference in sensitivity between the two. I had no problem feeling a .5g jig with a trout magnet body while twitching it. Had the same line and jig setups on the two rods, casting distance was withing a foot of each other.
I compared the bending curve of them, the curves are pretty similar, the Nano being a XUL takes less weight to get a full curve.
Caught sunfish from 4 to 7 inches, even the dinks were fun, a couple of the bigger ones were a blast putting a nice bend in the rod.
Overall if you are looking for a sensitive XUL rod I don't think you can go wrong with the Nano, it's still not cheap but a good bit less than the Extreme.
