Merry Christmas From The North

A shivering hello from the baltic sea and 1st impressions of Vagabond's "Shot Gun 601"

At first, happy Christmas to you all. Hopefully you are not all too hangovered from Christmas Eve pints or other alcoholic beverages. If you’re not celebrating Christmas then have a happy No-Christmas. Thanks a lot for reading throughout the year, it’s been an interesting one to say the least, and I wish you a peaceful festive season and the best of everything for 2009.

Despite the fact that I had way too much Cuba Libres last night, I decided to have some hours of bank fishing today. After a micro breakfast consisting of two painkillers and a cereal bar, I went to a small lake to give the new Vagabond stick a first try. Just after a few minutes I was absolutely stunned by it’s perfect grip and overall feel.

Even if the 101DC still looks a bit bulky to me, I had a lot of fun casting lures from 7 to 10g and the balance of this rod&reel combo felt quite good. A Conquest 51 might suit this lightweight rod better, but I prefer the performance and feel of the digital control braking system.

First fish caught was a nice-colored mid-sized pike.

In terms of performance the “Shot Gun 601″ seems to be on par with Evergreen’s TXFC-66L The ‘Quad Twister’ (which covered these light-weight lures so far), but loads way more easily which results in increddible casting performance. I was fishing this amazing rod for only a few hours, so it would be premature to make a judgement on whether it’s 100% working for it’s intended purpose or not, but first impressions where thoroughly positive.

Right then, that’s about that. Need to take care of more festivities before plannig the next fishing trip.

Take care…
Christian