In summary, this rod is awesome for its price and it’s also Australian developed by legend rod designer – Ian Miller.

I’ve had the opportunity to be playing with this rod for some time (yet to fish it though) and I am extremely impressed. It exhibits all the qualities of specialised Japanese GT rods, but in a typical TCurve fashion, represents value and extreme robustness at the same time.

In my own testing, I am comfortable fishing the rod outside of its recommended specifications but don’t recommend that you try it until you have touched, felt and decided for yourself. For example, I would be very confident to fish this with PE10.

The rod casts like a dream, it can punch very powerfully. Its has a length of 8’ which is a good compromise for those starting out in GT fishing and for seasoned anglers that would like a little extra distance while punching larger poppers. The rod feels great when locked-up, and still feels likes it has more in reserve for emergency situations - the grips are also a good length too. I wouldn’t have any problem working any surface lure whether it be a stickbait, chugger or pencil – a good allrounder.

The rod is a butt-joint configuration making it ideal for storage and travel. It has the new “Fossil Wood’ reel seat to help reduce weight and the first stripper guide has been reversed. The guides are Fuji SICs with 16 tip.

Here is some great information about the rod from the designer/developer Ian Miller.


About the Blank
The T-Curve blanks have a proven track record over the last few years as rugged, yet high-performance graphite blanks, and this made them an ideal candidate for a GT rod – which needs exactly the same attributes.

Rod Design
As with any purpose-built rod, the fundamental requirements need to be understood before designing can commence. I’ve been fortunate enough to do some GT fishing both on the GBR as well as other destinations in the North and South Pacific, so I had a basic understanding of the fish and the lures used. In recent years the Japanese have taken a close interest in this type of fishing and applied specific design characteristics to spinning rods to make them work better and I was interested in these developments. When you break GT fishing down to the very basics, the prime objective is about getting the lure to the fish – a boat can’t do this for you, so being able to cast a heavy lure is paramount! And although they are a hard-fighting fish, the fighting specifications of the rod take a back seat to the primary objective. This makes them quite a different design to most other spinning rods. I also researched the preferences of local specialist GT guides to gain another local perspective.

Inspiration/Basis for the Rod
Shimano Australia already has some very capable and popular rods on the market in the T-Curve Bluewater range however they are more of an all-round style salt water game spinning rod. While they have plenty of power for fighting GTs and have landed some very credible fish, they are not ‘tuned’ for casting GT lures. So a specialist GT rod design also had to incorporate other features – the casting power needed for large poppers and stick baits, a butt/handle design more ergonomically suited to casting big lures off large spin reels, enhanced line flow for bulky leader knots that are inherently encountered with heavy leaders, and had to be made lighter in the hand for long casting sessions! As such there is no particular rod that the GT can be prepared to but it would be fair to say that it is heavily influenced by Japanese design attributes.

The process was more a matter of studying the specifications of existing GT rods in the marketplace, understanding why they have the dimensions that they have and where they fit into the big picture, identifying where I wanted the Shimano GT rod to sit in that marketplace and accordingly fine-tuning the design aspects such as overall length, handle ratios, power ratings etc. GT fishing now covers a fairly wide spectrum of fishing situations and there is tackle designed to suit every situation but in order for the rod to work it had to be compatible with the widest range of applications. The Shimano GT has broad appeal because it is suited to a wide variety of popular lures and powerful enough for the popular line weights. There are more extreme rods for this type of fishing, however the heavier varieties are sometimes too much rod for the average angler to comfortably use, and the lighter rods can often be covered with less specialised tackle. So the Shimano GT rod is one that anglers should happily use for most GT sport-fishing situations.

Design in General
Rod design should always happen on a rod-by-rod basis. Having said that, Australians have somewhat of a pre-occupation for fast action rods and this tends to find its way into most rod designs. As far as I know it has origins in the 70’s and gained popularity because we have a lot of hard-fighting fish that do require some muscle to land them! In the past, it has been commercial suicide to try to offer slow actions because the popular belief is that only fast actions were worthy! This is slowly changing however there still needs to be a specific need to have the slower action before people will buy it. The GT rod fit this profile because a slower action is the best way to gain casting distance, and the fact that the lures are very heavy and require a stiff tip makes the slower action more obvious. I guess time will tell what designs become popular, but Aussie rods are slowly evolving and becoming more specialised so a larger variation in action should follow!

Pics - more to come.

I had a play with one in a shop in Aukland and thought they were choice, it did look like it has been made much like a Komodo Dragon but half the price.

Sounds like a good option for me to look at Luke as I do a fair amount of land based popping and the extra length for casting would be handy.
Any idea on costings..?

Pete

$499.00 AUD I believe.

One of my mates has just bought one - hopefully will get a look at it under fishing conditions on Saturday (as long as the wind doesn't blow up).  I'll let you all know how it goes.

Hi Luke.

So far the review sounds great and rod looks the goods.
I have just joined the forum and i'm looking at purchasing my first popping outfit and will team up the rod with the stella 10000.Was looking at a custom Calstar 700H which will be around the same price as this t curve GT rod.
Now question is which rod out of the two would you recommend to a begginer GT popper fisho.


cheers

Also depending on the situation and if like you, feel comfortable  using pe10 i think people will use more than the 12kg max drag recommendation .How do think think this rod would handle that type of luck up fishing.

Hi Tim,

Both are great rods for any angler at any level.

One thing I would recommend is go down and touch/feel both blanks - load them up. The Calstar is a faster blank than the slow, parabolic TCurve. Both are fine for GT popping but it can come down to personal preference. I really enjoy using a fast action rod when fishing very heavy lines but also have no problem using a slower action (read some more in Ian's information above). Faster blanks can be used to really put hurt on a fish in a capable anglers hands but a majority of popping rods are parabolic.

Customs are great, but you should make sure that you go to a builder that knows a thing or two about these kind of rods or you need to tell them exactly what you want. There are several guys on this site that could give you advice on a recipe and some other useful details.

Several advantages of the TCurve is:
1. 8' and parabolic - great for beginners to get confidence with casting distance.
2. Butt-join 2 piece - great for travel.
3. We know it works - and will work well!

The drag rating is probably conservative as I have felt in my hands but I would need to do some testing to tell you with confidence how much drag you could run through it. Remember, 12kg is still a hell of a lot of drag!

Leaning more towards the Shimano GT rod now because of it's length for a beginner and two piece construction for travel.
If i go the 700H custom Ross at Rodworks will be building it.

Well, here's the comparison.  My mate's new T-curve GT special against my Calstar 700H. 

The GT special is a pretty sexy looking rod. A bit lighter in weight than the Calstar but has a bit more grunt.  Maybe quite a bit.  Seems like a very nice rod for the money.  Nearly convinced to get one for my 10000 with PE8.  I fish the 700H with PE6 which I reckon is about right. 

Here's a couple pics

fully loaded with PE8

First fish for the T-Curve.  A respectable start!