Yep, I was directly involved with the development of these rods, and the 9’ 12-46g version would not have existed without me hassling the powers that be for it. I continue to be blown away by how good we managed to make the (awesome, my go-to for the surf) SGS5 9’6’’ 12-46g lure rod, and I reckon I fish with rods from “our” SGS5 range more than I do the SGS8 range - I like them that much. Accuse me of bias if you like, but I get to fish with a lot of different lure rods and I am sure you notice how many different brands appear on this blog. I stand by my firm belief that the Savage Gear SGS5 lure rod range is THE best set of lure rods up to say £200 that are available off the shelf in the UK and Ireland - with lure rods being very personal things of course…………….
And these two 9’ rods are frigging awesome bits of kit. We are talking about a regular 2-piece SGS5 9’ 12-46g rod and the 4-piece travel version which (annoyingly) doesn’t come in a protective tube for stuffing in your hold luggage if you are flying (I have looked around and the 2-piece is available at The Art of Fishing and Glasgow Angling Centre). Okay, so it’s no hassle cutting down a bit of cardboard tubing or drainpipe or something like that, but I didn’t get my way when it came to selling these SGS5 travel rods together with a protective tube. I guess that a number of anglers who might buy a 4-piece rod are going to leave it in the back of a car for those times when a quick lure fishing session presents itself, so maybe a protective tube isn’t that important? The EVA rod bag type thing that comes with both rods may well be enough for you, but for putting into hold luggage I prefer a bit more protection.
I am personally very comfortable with what might be classed as a slightly overpowered rod for a good bit of my lure fishing. As much as I like a wand if I can get away with it, give me a bit more power than I might need because of the ground and conditions I might fish a lot of the time. I really like a rod tip that doesn’t flap around in a good bit of wind, and I don’t say no to a rod which I can lock down tight when fishing soft plastics in amongst the properly rough stuff. For sure these two SGS5 rods are not going to be your subtle estuary or small surface lure rods, but when you get to grips with the powerful actions on them I can’t get enough. You know as well as I do that the more you fish with a rod the more you get used to it, and a session with either of these two awesome lure rods always gets me purring.
If you know the longer SGS5 9’6’’ 12-46g lure rod then you are going to have a good idea what these two shorter versions are like. Plenty of power but very usable, and to me they are true 12-46g rods. Of course I can fish the smaller 9cm/11g Savage Gear Pop Walker 2.0 surface lure on these 9’ rods, but they start to sing when you bang out a heavier Patchinko II or IMA Hound 125F Glide. I have fished the 13cm and 15cm Slender Scoop Shads rigged with 10g and heavier cheb weights a good bit on both these rods and I love how the stiffer tip keeps me in such good contact. I lent the 4-piece version to a mate who fished in Portugal last summer I think it was, and I said to thrash the rod as hard as he wanted. I know he overloaded it by a good bit and he had no trouble at all. These are powerful lure rods which I could easily use for the majority of my open coast lure fishing if need be - enough subtlety, but more than enough grunt for really gnarly ground or conditions.
The fixtures and fittings are as good as they can be for the price. I liked the SeaGuide guides from day one of testing various rod samples, indeed I am convinced that my lures go out a smidgen better with them on a rod. You are going to need to wash your rod down in freshwater with these guides, but then I always wash my gear down after fishing anyway and most guides will discolour over time if you don’t look after them. There isn’t a hint of any rust or discolouration on any of the SGS5 rods I have here at home. The reelseat is not an original Fuji, but it’s the perfect design for me and I haven’t noticed any difference at all between these cheaper versions and the Fuji equivalents. I also haven’t noticed any issues at all with any of the spigots coming loose when fishing with the 4-piece version.
I have spent a lot of time travelling around the world with fly anglers who use 4-piece fly rods which helpfully fit in their hold bags on planes. It’s how most fly rods are made and they think nothing of it. I guess in the lure fishing world we are behind in that respect, quite possibly because nearly all the rods we might buy are 2-piece so we are more used to them, and in fact it’s not always very easy at all to buy “proper” travel versions of the sort of rods we would want to fish with.
So in some respects I find it interesting that I find myself drawn a tiny bit more to the 4-piece version of the SG5 9’ 12-46g over the 2-piece version. We are talking marginal factors here, but I find the 4-piece rod to be a touch “easier” to fish your more regular, say 10-30g lures with. There is still all the power you could need for most shore based lure fishing when chasing bass, pollack and wrasse, but my feeling is that by creating this 4-piece version there’s a tiny bit more ease through the mid-section of the rod especially. I used only the 4-piece rod for my recent trip to Guernsey when I jumped on a plane to get there, and I could not have been happier with the rod as we covered so much awesome ground with a bunch of what I would call regular lures - see this blog post here for more details on the lures we fished with. Not for one second did I regret not taking the 4-piece SGS5 9-35g version which I might add is a bloody nice lure rod as well.
When I first got hold of the finished sample 2-piece SGS5 9’ 12-46g rod, I fished mainly in the surf with it - banging metals, and especially the 35g and 40g Surf Seekers - or I used it for some wrasse and pollack fishing over in Ireland. If you want to stop a wrasse dead in its tracks then this rod is something else, and for pollack fishing from the shore I think it’s an incredible bit of kit. You can really feel that mid-section of the rod kicking in when you put the hurt on a decent pollack which is intent on trying to crash-dive to safety, but there is also enough subtlety in the tip when you are having to finesse something like the 13cm/33g Sandeel V2 Weedless along the bottom in deeper water because the pollack are playing hard to get. Then over time I started fishing this rod some more for some of the bass fishing, and especially where I might be fishing lures like the Sandeel V2 J-hook and Weedless in amongst rough ground in heavier conditions.
Slap the Penn Slammer IV 2500 on these two SGS5 9’ 12-46g rods and it’s the perfect combination in my mind, but in fact I have used a few different spinning reels on them and I find the rods to be pretty accommodating like this. I seriously like the Daiwa BG MQ 4000D-XH spinning reel on these rods - review to come - and I have also fished a good bit with the Van Staal VR75 on both rods - again, review to come. If the Slammer IV 2500 feels good on a rod then you know the more expensive Penn Authority 2500 is going to be just fine as well. I also fished a couple of sessions with the larger and slightly heavier Penn Slammer IV 3500 on this rod and I kinda liked the extra bit of heft on the butt end.
It was that Guernsey trip though that fully opened my eyes up to how versatile the 4-piece version is. It was the only rod I had with me so I had to fish with it regardless, but half an hour or so into the first session over there and I was seriously loving it. I have fished with the 2-piece version enough to be convinced that there really is that smidgen more “ease” to the 4-piece version, and I welcomed that when I was in Guernsey with the sort of lures we were using. I am not about to try and pretend that this rod is close to the ridiculous mixture of incredibly accessible power and subtlety that you find on the (horribly expensive) APIA Foojin'Z Testamatta 88MH 8'8'' 8-56g lure rod - review here - but for about a fifth of the price I am getting a lure rod which can cover a similar range of lures as the APIA. In a different way for sure, but for £150 and under I cannot recall fishing with any “next step up in power” lure rods I have fished with which I like as much as these two SGS5 rods. If the day comes when Savage Gear deems me to be surplus to requirements - people like me are generally somewhat expendable - I can assure you that these two SGS5 9’ 12-46g lure rods will be miraculously missed out of the parcel of gear going back to them!
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