A 9'5'' lure fishing rod rated 12-50g has absolutely no right to be this subtle and easy to fish with. But it is, and it gives me serious issues. As you can probably imagine with the work I do, I need a new lure fishing rod about as much as a politician needs another kickback. I have plenty of different lure rods here at home which are either on the market or which we are working on and refining and so on - but I seriously want this APIA Foojin’RS Desire 95MH 9’5’’ 12-50g lure rod. What the hell, as per the name of the rod, I desire it…………..
Get a rod like this wrong and it could very easily be an out and out powerhouse that will obviously cope with bigger lures in bigger seas or deeper water but after an hour or two your shoulders will be complaining because it takes so bloody much to wind the thing up. Knowing what I do about the process of making lure rods and bringing them to market, that would be an easy rod to make and it wouldn’t need to cost very much either.
But now let’s talk about a lure rod which can seamlessly switch between a genuine 50g metal or 50g paddletail/jig head combination in really bouncy seas, and then something like the smaller Gravity Stick 120 soft plastics on its 4/0 2g belly-weight hook or a smaller hard lure like the killer little Savage Gear Gravity Shallow 10cm/14g. This rod can be very powerful when you need it to be, but it’s also almost stupidly easy to cast. It’s very responsive yet still has a sufficiently strong tip which copes with strong winds, fast currents and deeper water, it’s very able to successfully fish quieter conditions and shallow water, and it’s more than capable of genuinely fishing lures well in the 12-50g category which of course is quoted on the rod itself. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to one of those genuine freaks of a lure fishing rod, the very accomplished and easy to fish with APIA Foojin’RS Desire 95MH 9’5’’ 12-50g, which for ease of typing we are now going to call the Desire.
I am really enjoying getting back to some of my bass fishing with 9’ and shorter lure rods these days, and somehow this Desire just doesn’t really feel like a longer and more powerful rod. For sure you get the casting benefits that a longer rod can (arguably) give you, indeed when you wind this thing up with something like the 40g Surf Seeker or the Savage Gear Surf Walker 2.0 18cm/42.5g Sinking surface lure, it’s just silly. Silly because the lures are going so far, but also silly because it takes so little effort to compress this rod and send them out there. For sure you’re not bending a rod like this with a lure such as the long-casting and very shallow-swimming Savage Gear Gravity Shallow 10cm/14g as much as you are with a 40-50g metal, but it’s almost frighteningly and genuinely efficient with lures from 12-50g. Hell, I even rather like it with the smallest SG Surf Walker 2.0 12.5cm/9.5g Floating surface lure. I am obviously not buying a rod like this if I am going to fish mostly with lighter lures, but if money were no object I would be buying a rod like this because I wanted it to do almost any kind of open coast bass fishing I can think of doing in UK and Irish waters. I am sure you can imagine how well the Patchinko 140 and 125 surface lures go out on this rod.
I genuinely have no idea how the APIA rod designers have managed to make such a comparatively powerful lure rod feel as good as this. With the Penn Authority 2500 or Slammer IV 2500 spinning reels strapped to the perfect handle layout, I see this Desire as a sort of natural progression from that Shimano Exsence Genos “Wild Contact 90” S90MH/R 9' 8-48g rod I have loved so much. This APIA rod can cope with the lighter lures as well as the Shimano can, but it’s towards the top end where I think it takes the upper hand and runs with it. Not as razor sharp as the Shimano, this Desire instead goes down a slightly different and easier route, and in some respects I think it’s a better fishing rod for it.
And talking about spinning reels, I genuinely think that this Desire feels as good with something very light like the Shimano Vanford 4000 or C5000 as it does with a heavier Penn Authority 2500 or 3500 or Slammer IV 2500 or 3500. I don’t care where a lure rod balances on my forefinger because in the real fishing world this has always meant sod all to me. I care about what a rod feels like when I am out fishing, and this Desire is SO my kind of lure fishing rod with how it feels when I am fishing with it. I would not be turning to it for most of the estuary based lure fishing I might do (save for say bumping bigger soft plastics in deeper water and stronger currents), but I could genuinely turn to this Desire for almost all my open coast bass fishing - because it’s so bloody good. For sure I like fishing with lighter rated and/or shorter lure rods when locations and conditions allow, but I am also perfectly happy with what might technically be a slightly overpowered lure rod IF that rod fishes as easily and efficiently as this thing. All that access to power but with so much subtlety and deft handling if you need to access it.
I am going to copy and paste my words from Monday’s APIA Foojin’RS Vivogue 96ML+ 9’6’’ 6-38g lure rod review when it comes to the handle design. The foregrip is what I think of as a reverse reelseat design with a really comfortable, shaped, grippy, and contoured EVA section where your reel hand sits when you are casting and retrieving. Then you have the little section which screws down to secure your reel and upon which your forefinger and thumb will naturally sit when you’re fishing. The material feels like a very grippy sort of rubber shrink tube, indeed the whole handle design is perfect for wet and dry hands. I have always liked APIA rod handles and I think with this very minimalist and well thought out way of doing things on these Foojin’RS rods they have absolutely nailed it.
I have fished with enough lure rods now to know when something a bit special comes along and wrecks my head. How APIA designs and makes a rod like this Foojin’RS Desire 95MH 9’5’’ 12-50g is kinda freaking me out because I feel like I should be able to find a sort of lure weight sweet spot within the 12-50g range - but I can’t. I might not need to be bass fishing with 50g lures that much, but to have the option of effortlessly banging out and fishing say the J-hook Savage Gear Sandeel V2 15.5cm/46g on the same rod as I might effectively fish the little Pop Walker 2.0 9cm/11g is seriously quite something. Lure rods like this don’t find their way into my hands very often and it’s given me issues. As I said in the title of this blog post - help!
If by any chance you “desire” this Desire - sorry! - then please follow one of the links (in blue) through to the Art of Fishing where you will be able to preorder one. I believe that a bunch of these new APIA Foojin’RS rods are coming back into stock in March/April, and then it could be a long wait for the next lot. Get in there now if you want this rod.
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