HTO Nebula IKA Hunter 2.65m, 2.5-4.5 egi (squid) rod review, makes for a lovely 8’7’’ 30g bass rod - around £100

The word nice is a bit of a copout when it comes to describing a fishing rod, but this thing does happen to be a seriously nice rod which is a bit of a steal at the price. It’s thanks completely to a lad called Jake Schogler who put me onto this rather lovely HTO Nebula IKA Hunter 2.65m lure rod, because I wasn’t aware of its existence until Jake put one into my hands at the Glasgow Angling Centre open weekend the other day (check out Jake’s YouTube channel here where he shows you how to make lures). Jake also works closely with HTO, and I know that with all the lure rods the company does, he chooses to do his bass fishing with this rod we are talking about today…………….

So my knowledge of lure fishing for squid is basically zero. I remember seeing a Daiwa squid lure rod a good few years ago and thinking that it felt like a good bass rod, but beyond that I have watched a few Japanese squid lure fishing videos and I recognise that there is a big scene over there with a lot of specialist tackle. I know that a number of UK anglers will target squid from the shore at the right time of year, but that is where I am at with it. I know that a squid lure/jig is called an “egi” and that their size/weight goes by a numbering system, so the full name of this HTO Nebula IKA Hunter - 2.65m | 2.5-4.5 egi makes sense on that front.

But Jake told me to fish it as a bass rod, so as a bass lure rod it’s essentially 8’7’’ and we both reckon it can deal effectively with lures up to about 30g. The £100 price point doesn’t always get you a truly “proper” lure rod, but this HTO Nebula IKA Hunter is a serious bit of kit whatever the price. I take my hat off to HTO and what they do. Their Nebula rods definitely defined how good a cheaper lure rod could be in my book. I hope it’s okay to grab Jake’s words on this rod from the HTO website, especially because he has fished with this rod a huge amount and I know how much he loves this rod when you bend into a bass especially:

“At 2.65 meters long and with an EGI weight of 2.5 – 4.5 (roughly 8-30g casting weight), it fits firmly in my favoured weight range and length for bassing from the shore. Despite being a dedicated squid rod, it makes an amazing bass rod for working HTO Schluggs rigged on jigheads. Firstly, the rod has the feel of a stepped-up LRF rod. It sports a tubular tip, and, like the rest of the HTO Nebula range, a thin, modern blank. Smaller twitches feel no different to any other fast action rod in the Nebula range. Only when you do a larger lift of the rod does the blank start to curve a bit more throughout the length of the rod. At no point do you lose any sensitivity, and this sensitivity allows me to work exposed hook lures through some snaggy ground purely by feel and without snagging! Being a progressive actioned rod, it loads up beautifully on the cast and was powering out a Schlugg on a 10g jighead with ease. I was convinced I had gained a few more yards in casting distance”.

I really enjoy fishing with good lure rods under that 9’ length when they are put together like this thing. Lovely and light and very responsive, it’s almost like you can’t go wrong with a cast. None of us are ever casting at our optimum levels all the time, but this HTO Nebula IKA Hunter is so kind and forgiving, but without being remotely sloppy or imprecise. It just works. For sure I could do with perhaps an inch extra on the handle length, but give me ten minutes and I am perfectly comfortable. As Jake says, with soft plastics this rod is lovely. The rod so effectively gets the lures out there, then the tip supplies plenty of control and feel. I also like working the small to medium surface lures on this rod. You can smack the regular Patchinko perfectly happily all day long if you want to, but I’d suggest you wouldn’t be buying this rod if you only intended to fish more towards the 30g end.

Which the rod can happily cope with, but I think it really comes to life when you’re twitching stuff like the Gravity Stick Pintails and DoLive Sticks around - I don’t know Jake’s HTO Schluggs, but he smashes bass on them so they work! - and surface lures like the Patchinko 125, Savage Gear Pop Walker 2.0 9cm/11g and the missile Savage Gear Slap Walker 12.5cm/20g are awesome on this thing. You can obviously whack and crank paddletails all day long. I might be at day one with fishing creature baits (crab/prawn imitations) for bass, but this rod seems to work very well when you’re bumping these lures along the bottom on cheb heads or weedless jig heads etc. So many lure anglers could fish with a rod like this for the majority of their bass fishing, and I’m then guessing that because it was designed for squid fishing, it might be rather good for that as well!

I don’t really need to tell you much more here, because for £100 we’ve got the most delightful 8’7’’ lure rod. A lot of you are rarely going to need to bang heavier lures out into rougher seas, hence I guess why that roughly 7-35g lure rod rating is most likely the most popular lure rod category here in the UK. I don’t know that for a fact by the way, but I feel qualified to make an educated guess. You know that I am a complete and utter fishing tackle tart who sometimes drops not inconsiderable amounts of hard-earned dosh on something, but the biggest thrill I get is when I come across really good fishing tackle which doesn’t break the bank. This HTO Nebula IKA Hunter 2.65m, 2.5-4.5 egi is a peach. Thank you so much Jake for putting me onto it!

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