Favorite Black Swan 852MH 8'5'' 10-36g lure rod review - £269.99 - ridiculous amount of rod for the money, wand!

Whilst I am struggling to fish with anything other than the more powerful Favorite Black Swan 852H 8'5'' 16-56g lure rod which I reviewed the other day, it obviously goes without saying that however versatile that rod actually is - and it truly is - a lot of shore based bass anglers simply aren’t going to go for a lure rod which has a high end casting weight of 56g. I am not privy to any tackle company’s sales figures, but I have always assumed the lure rods which lie somewhere in the region of say 5-35g are the most popular. This obviously matches the fact that most lures we might bass fish with are 35g or less, hence me reviewing this stunning Favorite Black Swan 852MH 8'5'' 10-36g lure rod here……………..

What is a wand in terms of a lure fishing rod? My definition would have to be this exact rod. Weighing an amazing 103g, if you like a lightweight lure rod which can genuinely thrash something like the 35g Savage Gear Surf Seeker as hard as you can hit it, then this is a rod to consider. It’s bloody incredible how effortless this thing is. I really enjoy fishing with sub-9’ lure rods if they sit so easily in my hands like this Favorite Black Swan 852MH 8'5'' 10-36g does. I have strapped a heavier Penn Authority 2500 spinning reel to this (incredibly lightweight) rod, and in some respects it does actually okay to have that extra weight down the butt-end, but now strap something very lightweight like one of the Shimano Stradic or Vanford spinning reels to this 103g rod and we’re seriously talking.

Up to 36g I would suggest that there is nothing that this rod cannot do for my bass lure fishing, from sea bed to sub-surface to top, indeed part of the reason I like this Favorite Black Swan 852MH 8'5'' 10-36g lure rod so much is because it is such a seamless transition between this rod and the more powerful 16-56g version. Of course the rods are different because of their casting weights, but the way this 10-36g version bends is so much along the lines of the more powerful 16-56g one - taking into account that this 10-36g rod we are talking about here is obviously less powerful. Fast and precise but with no snatching at all if you mistime a cast, and I wonder if many anglers ever take that into consideration? As smooth as a very smooth thing. Take every single thing that I said about the more powerful 16-56g version in my review here, but pare it down to allow for a 10-36g rating and how it’s naturally a touch lighter and slightly more responsive. The tip on this rod is a stunner.

You are either going to like the very minimalist design of these extraordinary Favorite Black Swan rods or not, because there is absolutely no bling here at all. I rather like this, in that the designer Ivan has definitely gone for a “let the blank do the talking” approach. And it’s a peach of a blank. Whatever the word “feel” actually means in lure fishing, well this rod has got buckets of it. Take the 6/0 Savage Gear belly-weight weedless corkscrew hook, force the belly-weight to the front of the hook with a pair of pliers, rig the smaller Gravity Stick Pintail 120 soft plastic on it, and let it fly. This is now the most incredible twitchbait when rigged like this, and I cannot tell you how good it is to fish lures like these on this rod. The HTO Slim Snax I made reference to here the other day is a dream on this rod.

I don’t tend to fish really light lures for bass so I can’t tell you about fishing lures under about 10g on a rod like this, but I have no doubt that the rod would handle them very well. There isn’t much point in me banging on about fishing specific lures on this rod because when I take a rod like this out fishing with me I am expecting it to cover everything I might turn to. I am not generally going to fish something like big surf conditions with a lure rod like this - the rod can do it, but I prefer longer and more powerful rods in the surf - but I’m perfectly happy targeting properly bouncy conditions around the rocks for example, and estuary work on this rod is a dream.

Wanna go a bit lighter again? The Favorite Black Swan 852M 8'5'' 6-24g lure rod which I reviewed here is something else, and it’s the lightest lure rod I have ever fished with.

I must also come back to the word “tension” that I am sure I have used before in some lure rod reviews. The tension from rod tip to a surface lure on this Favorite Black Swan 852MH 8'5'' 10-36g lure rod is remarkable. There is absolutely no collapsing of the rod tip as you walk the dog, but there is also enough give so that you don’t go knocking a surface lure off its natural cadence. I don’t know if I am describing this very well, but I can perfectly visualise what I am on about. There’s a feeling I get with a select few lure rods when that line flies out on a cast and I feel completely at one with the rod as I then start the retrieve. I have fished with a few of these Favorite Black Swan rods now and I get this feeling with them all so far. The 16-56g version if SO my kind of lure rod, but this 10-36g rod is very hard to put down, and compared to other rods I know which often cost way more than this thing, this Favorite Black Swan 852MH 8'5'' 10-36g is seriously good value for money. I know a good bit about the materials used in these Black Swan rods. In some respects this is a regular lure rod which can cover all lure fishing for bass that most anglers might do, but this rod is anything but regular. It’s a special bit of kit and I am very lucky to have got to spend proper time with it. You all have a good weekend…………….

Disclosure - If you buy anything using links found around my website, I may make a commission. It doesn’t cost you anymore to buy via these affiliate links - and please feel entirely free not to do so of course - but it will help me to continue producing content. Thank you.