by Chris Frith
On recent venture to Copeton Dam, in northern NSW I was excited to put a couple of relatively new rods through their paces and see how they matched up to the punishment of Copeton’s king-sized natives. To further this point, the majority of my fishing time was spent pulling fish out of extremely thick timber, so I was certainly able to dish out some punishment on the samurai inflicts. The two main models I used was the INF-10-F70 and INF-8-F70, that being 3-8lb & 4-10lb and 7’ respectively. So we’re talking light rods in the ring against big yellas.
I used a number of techniques, but focused on jigging vibes around the tree bases and rolling bass grubs up the standing timber. A clear pattern was the fact the fish generally came when the lure was presented near to the middle of the snag, the most difficult place to extract a hooked fish from. Much of the success is dependent on how well you position yourself and move around the boat to pull the hooked yellowbelly from the numerous branches they’re trying to burry into, however I know that if the gear I was using wasn’t up to par then the outcomes would have been very different, and the fact that these relatively light spin rods were pulling out 50cm plus goldens from the trees for only one bust off is a true testament to their power and sturdy construction.
Check out the video screenshot to see the hurt that these rods can handle.
Two of the better fish actually had me bricked on a branch, and despite trying to free spool my line to allow them room to swim out. I had to resort to trying to reef them off their branches. It is scenarios like this where all your gear has to be up to the challenge, from rod, line, leader and jighead all have be spot on or you will end up with lost fish. On that note, I found that matching my inflict rods with Unitika line & leader and Atomic jig heads provided me with a reliable set-up that could comfortably rip fish from their timber laden lairs. The inflict range cater for both spin and baitcast users and feature quality components at a very affordable price point for a premium, tournament grade rod.
