Welcome to the fourth out of four reviews of spey rods designed for king salmon fishing. During the first week of our season at BC West this year, we built ourselves up a little quiver of big boy rods and fished them, just so we can tell you all about them. Well, actually we had a lot of fun fishing them too.
We’ve previously written up the ECHO King, the Sage 10130-4 ONE and the Pieroway Metal Detector 720. We wrote about the Scott T2h 12510/4 when it first came out, but we’re covering it again today for two reasons. First, we learned more about it by casting it side-by-side with 3 other king rods. Second, line options have changed since it first came out, and it this case it mattered – more below!
Design
This rod is designed to kick the crap out of big king salmon. Of the four rods we tested, it’s not only the most powerful but the shortest, at 12’6″. Short, powerful rods are the best tools for fighting big fish.
It’s got pretty long grips. It’s got sleeve ferrules. It’s got a down locking reel seat. It was the second heaviest in the bunch at 9 1/4 ounces.
Fishing Performance
Howitzer. Cannon. Rocket Launcher.
This is one powerful rod. It took by far the most grains of any rod in our test (read just a little further for the numbers). The butt section on this thing is really manly – even when lined properly it feels like it bends halfway up.
It’ll throw T-17 without a problem, but it does better with medium-ish length tips since it’s pretty short at 12’6″. It’s just not a really long lever if you’re trying to pull something longer than 15′ up out of the water at the beginning of your cast.
Even though you theoretically compromise casting distance with a shorter spey rod, any reasonable cast is not a problem – there’s no substitute for power. You can pull really, really hard on fish with the Scott king rod. It’s the best spey rod we’ve used for fighting big fish.
Even though it’s on the heavy side of the spectrum, it really doesn’t feel that way when you’re fishing it. A little over 9 ounces is still light for a 10 weight, and again the shorter length just makes it feel a little lighter.
Mega-powerful shorter rods are, pardon the expression, ‘not for kids’. You need to have your timing down – it’s not super-forgiving. In the right hands though, it’s one heck of a weapon.
Line Match
780 grains! Yep, Airflo recently came out with Skagit Compacts ranging from 750 to 810 grains. With a ‘normal’ king tip (i.e. 12 feet of T-14), the 720 and 750 were too light. The 780 actually bent this thing with an easy casting stroke.
As with most situations where you get the line match right, it didn’t feel uncomfortable at all with this head. If you handed it to someone and asked them to cast it without looking closely at the rig, they’d never guess they were casting a 780 grain Skagit head.
Summary
It’s a ridiculously powerful rod that’s perfect for experienced casters who want to pull as hard as possible on very large fish. It costs $895.
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