TrophyEyes, I hate to correct you, but not all Shimano rods are over the counter, just the good ones. Did you guys know that Shimano is the parent company of G. Loomis? From what I have been told by people that know is that the Cumara and Crucial rods are Chinese versions of the USA built Loomis blanks. I am guessing here but maybe versions of the GLX and IMX??

Fenwick HMG's and higher are lifetime & from what I understand. I broke mine last year - brought it to Joe's where I bought it, Fenwick send me a brand new rod no questions asked.

Turk: I have a big check coming up in a week or two. Lots of overtime on it. I have looked at some of the rods and think I will buy one.

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Tight Lines;
Uncle Kes

I had heard that about Loomis but no one seemed to know for sure. I would think those shimano chinese rods are using the GL3 blanks. If Shimano does own Loomis, they sure don't have any mention of it on either website.

Shimano does own G.loomis. It's mentioned somewhere in some fine small type face on the website, somewhere. You'll see it like subdivisions of Shimano and the name G.loomis comes up once.

Many of the Shimano rod blanks are made in China. The G.Loomis blanks are made in USA. Doesn't seem that they share designs at all.

I was told the designs processes are very similar, the price difference comes from the amount of rods they can produce in China Vs the number of hand crafted rods built by master rod builders.

In a way, I suppose any rod can follow a like design process of a higher end rod. It's natural to imitate the leader in the business. However just compare the finishing on those rods. Many of the G.Loomis rods don't appear to have any thick resin coating. They are often finely sanded with a low gloss finish. Blanks are produced in a highly controlled environment. The blanks on the Crucials of 7'+ are a lot larger in diameter compared to a G.Loomis or St.Croix. That sort of hints to me it's a very different scrim from G.Loomis.

I personally haven't seen the Cumara rods. Personally EVA foam grips are a turn off for me. Everything else about the rods sounds very promising.

When I bought my Crucial drop shot rods, I had to isolate half of them as poor finishing. In other words there were some serious finishing flaws like bad cork or exessive epoxy on line guides to even a very different rod bend compared to identical rod. I spend my time looking for the one that's not flawed and it's time consuming going through the entire retail rack.

I'd go through the same process with any St.Croix or G.Loomis rods. But it's like you look for the one that you don't want flawed in some way. In the end, dollar for dollar, seems like the Crucials would get the job done with comparable sensitivity at half the cost. The only set back was that they didn't have nearly the backbone I'd expected for fish control. For walley fishing, it's an enjoyment. For bass fishing, it felt underpowered.

Turk! I broke down and headed over to Moore's Bait and Tackle and picked up a brand new LCS69MLF. Got a really good deal on it too. More than 2/3 of the normal price of $89.00. I will try it out this weekend. But I already can tell it is an excellent well balanced rod. I am looking forward to fishing with it.

Thanks for the tip about them.

Regards;
Uncle Kes