No more fishing travel blues: Daiwa 3 piece travel rod review – Mark Bargenquast

Working out of a suitcase for 6 months of the year can be tough, travelling by plane from South East Queensland to Weipa takes 3 connecting flights and I really can’t be bothered taking rod tubes back and forth, it’s just too much hassle! The alternative was to try some 3 piece travel rods, but how good were they?

I remembered years ago I had a couple of telescopic travel rods that had a terrible action and were quite heavy so I was always skeptical about travel type rods. I decided to order a couple of Daiwa Generation Black HFV 3 piece travel rods to give them a try and I came away impressed! The rod models I decided on were the 3 piece, 7 foot (or 2.13 meter) versions in a light and medium action, the black sniper 703 mhfs is rated 4-7 kg and the deep striker mlfs is also a 7 foot rod and is rated 2-5 kg. I matched these rods with the Daiwa freams 4000 and 2500 reels matched with the new J Braid in 20 and 10 pound test.

First impressions were good, the rods had a great feel with a nice constant curve while loaded up, no flat spots at all and they actually felt like one piece blanks, I couldn’t wait for a fish with them. We have been doing some long range guiding trips from the boats on the western side of the cape so this was to be a real test.

The first few days fishing we flyfished for permit and caught a few but I was itching to give the spin gear a workout, finally I got my chance back at camp with plenty of smallish queenfish, pikey bream, jacks and trevally working baitfish I quickly rigged the deep striker and very first cast landed a nice little queenfish, it felt good and cast heavy 20 gram woofer easily!

The other guys all had a play with the outfit and were also impressed! The next few days after rigging the black sniper as well we caught some big queenfish, broad barred mackerel, giant herring, cod, pikey bream, fingermark and a tuna on both outfits. They felt great and I would be happy to fish with these rods all day, any day as they really do feel like one piece rods, I’m impressed!