TackleTour

Returning to Tradition : Fenwick's Elite Tech Spinning



Introduction: As one of the pioneer rod building companies in the industry, Fenwick has a long, and very storied past. It is on one of their sticks, a circa 1980's, 5'-0", HMG ultra light rod, that I managed to catch my heaviest large mouth bass to date - an eleven pound plus fish. Naturally, because of that catch, I have a soft spot for this brand, but it's been a long time since the company has built something that's piqued my interest - the competition is fierce these days. At ICAST 2014, we were shown the latest refresh of their Elite Tech bass rods, a series of sticks that are a little bit old school yet very contemporary in design and spec. Here now is our look at their ETB69M-MFS-MFS.

Complete Article: http://tackletour.com/reviewfenwickelitetechspin.html

Nice review. These rods are generally not in distribution nor do they get much talk. Nice to see TT bringing a good product forward for review.

When I first read the review, I was disappointed with the overall outcome. I thought for a moment I had the same rod but when I checked I found mine is a 6'9 ML Fast action in the Smallmouth series. While very similar to the rod reviewed, my ML weights in at a 3.2oz. I can't imagine what Fenwick has done to increase rod weight 30% by increasing power by 1/2 How would you have felt about the rod if it weighed in at 3.7oz?

I've been reading your reviews for +10 years Cal. I'm wondering if you see less sensitivity difference now between a well made $150 rod and a $400 rod vs. the difference say 10 years ago? When I picked up the 6'9 ML fenwick 2 years ago it hit me that I'd need to mount same reels and same line on this rod and a $400DS rod to say conclusively if I can tell a difference sensitivity wise.

If you're asking whether some of the current $150 are more sensitive or just better overall than in the past, the answer is yes

But the old Berkeley Series 1 sticks which retailed for $99-$129 when they first came out in the mid to late 80's were very sensitive in their own right, so it really just depends on the build.