Field Test Preview: Century Sling Shot and S1 Stealth

Surf fishermen have had a couple excellent new rod options hit the market over the past couple years, one of these being Century Rods. I’ve been hearing a lot about these rods for their feather-light weights, casting distances and excellent actions. The rods also use an autoclave process that, as I understand it, removes any voids and excess resin in the blank by keeping total control over temperature and pressure during the curing stage of blank production. What that means to fishermen like myself who wouldn’t know what an autoclave was if it hit them in the face, is that the rod will be lighter, less brittle,  recover quickly, cast farther and have a long lifetime.

I spent a couple nights fishing with the S1 Stealth 11-footer, which is rated 1 to 5 ounces. With that rod, I cast a 1.5-ounce bucktail farther than I ever had before. The soft tip gave the lures good action and was pretty sensitive. I let Kevin Blinkoff check out the rod in the OTW parking lot, but that turned out to be a mistake. Kevin liked the feel of the custom rod so much, he refused to give it back.  The next time I saw it, it was doubled over with a thrashing bass right in the wash, and Kevin was saying how much he liked the rod’s feel.

A rod that fit my style a bit more was the Sling Shot, which has a faster action that the Stealth. Mike Kulik of KM Custom Rods spun up a 10-foot, 6-inch model for me, and over the weekend, I picked up the rod from a Cuttyhunk-bound DJ Muller in New Bedford. Initial impression of the rod was the weight. The rod weighed hardly anything at all.  The fast action and recovery time made it feel as though it could send a 2 3/8-ounce Super Strike Zig Zag into orbit. I’ll be putting the rod to work during the last leg of the fall run here in New England, and hopefully on Long Island and New Jersey as well, and will do a full Field Test Favorites entry on it for an upcoming issue of the magazine.