If you’ve gone to your local tackle shop with a certain rod in mind, chances are you didn’t find it in stock. Maybe you had to settle for what they had, or had them order a rod for you, and then the rod broke during normal use. So you took the broken rod back to the shop you bought it from, only to be told that you have to contact the manufacturer to have it replaced under warranty. Then you find out you have to pay shipping to send the broken rod to the mainland, which could cost more than $25.

There’s so many issues to unpack here.

I get it, our local shops don’t have a lot of space to display rods, and shipping the rods here from the mainland costs a lot of money. They have to bring in the types of rods that would sell the easiest, which often means lower priced rods.

What if you wanna try a premium rod but don’t see it in the stores? Have you been able to order the rod online and was the final price reasonable?

A few friends have snapped rods at a rate that seemed higher than years’ past. Maybe quality control has gone down in certain brands? Kayak anglers put a lot of stress on their gear, but a friend broke 2 St Croix Rift jig rods in two successive trips and didn’t appear to do anything out of the norm.

Holoholo guest poster Matthew broke a Major Craft N-One whipping rod on a tilapia!

And another friend broke a Major Craft Crostage whipping rod after buying it in a local shop and testing the spline at home!

These rod issues are a pet peeve of mine. I’ve been on a mission to vet rod brands and bring in quality rods to sell to the local crew. I started with St Croix (the St Croix Rift rods that snapped were not purchased from me!), but the company became so unresponsive that I could never fill an order. So I moved onto Phenix Rods and really liked the two kayak live bait rods I have been testing, but Phenix was bought out by a larger company and they moved operations from Southern California to TX. Shipping to Hawaii nearly doubled and they were initially bogged down in the transition but have been responsive to requests again.

So I tried United Composites, the well respected, Made In The USA, rod blank company out of Huntington Beach, CA and they miraculously accepted me as a dealer. They are well known for making very strong, sensitive, light rods for specific needs, and would be a good source if you plug for big fish, shore cast for ulua, troll for pelagics or live bait fish. There’s a 7ft boat rod that looks like it would work well as a kayak or jet ski live bait rod that I will be trying soon!

My rep at Phenix Rods moved from Phenix to Ocean’s Legacy, which is an Australian brand and makes durable rods for the Aussie land based and boat based plugger and jigger. Their rods aren’t as thin and light as the Japanese rods, but they are less expensive and handle stress better. Ocean’s Legacy ships their products out of Texas for the US market and there’s a few reasonably priced jigging rods I’m hoping to test soon.

No wonder the local shops can’t bring in a variety of brands. So few of the quality rod makers are filling orders. I sure hope I can secure a dependable source of very good rods at reasonable prices that fit our unique needs in Hawaii.