Friends at BassResource.com, Mark Zona hanging with you, and this is really throughout ICAST. This is the booth I hang in really almost the entire week. I'm in the G.Loomis booth, and right here is your award winner for best freshwater rod. This is the Loomis NRX 916 Umbrella rig rod. We put actually a lot of time into this rod.
You all know it, especially where you're from, Glenn and everybody else on this website, throwing umbrella rigs takes a very special type of rod, special type of reel. We started working on this about 9 or 10 months ago.
I actually shot a show down on Lake Guntersville with my buddy, Jeff Kriet, and the one thing we were looking for in this rod for throwing umbrella rigs was a rod that would not wear you down. We all know you want to get some sensitivity, you want to get some backbone, but at the same time you want a rod that is light. The other thing that we did with this is we softened the tip of this rod, but a complete load backbone from here down.
So when you're launching that thing out on Guntersville or Chickamauga, or wherever you're fishing, you're going to actually feel, with this rod, the tails of your umbrella rig swim baits thump, thump, thump, thump. But of all the rods we tested and worked through, this one when one would flare on it, when one would bite this umbrella rig rod, the Loomis NRX 916, best we can work with.