ON THE WATER MAGAZINE:

This was in the November issue of On The Water Magazine:

Local Hooker Rods Falmouth, Cape Cod (508) 548-121 www.localhookerrods.com

When you first set eyes on one of these rods, you might jump to the conclusion that something went horribly wrong in the building process. But spiral-wrapped rods are nothing new – they just never really caught on in the Northeast. The basic concept behind them is that the guides transfer the pressure caused by a fighting fish from above the rod blank to below. A conventional rod with guides placed on top of the rod blank has the tendency to want to twist left or right when it's under pressure. A spiral-wrapped rod, on the other hand, remains stable, and the angler doesn't have to use any pressure to keep the rod upright. This might not make much of a difference with light tackle, but when you're using heavy offshore reels, the angler ends up fighting the weight of the reel to keep it from twisting. I finally got the chance to fight a big fish with one of these rods, and I'm now a believer. On a trip to West Atlantis Canyon, I hooked into a 60-pound yellowfin tuna using a Local Hooker 30-pound-class acid-wrapped rod. Even with the relatively small 30-pound-class reel, I was able to stop the fish quickly, and the long, grueling process of winching in a tuna was relatively pain-free. All of the weight of the fish was transferred to the bottom of the rod, and it felt like I was able to get more leverage. The rod and reel held stable, and the fish came in quick. We had a double hook-up of fish of equal size (the other one hit a squid bar on a 50-pound-class reel with a conventional rod by another manufacturer). I had my fish in the boat about five minutes faster than the other angler, who was using heavier gear. Like I said, I'm now a believer.