Weird looking guides on this Zenaq Snipe rod, but they seem to be doing some interesting stuff

This is not a rod review by the way, indeed I am a bit hesitant about doing a review of the single most expensive lure rod I have ever fished with, the Zenaq Snipe S86XX Longcast 8'6'' 8-40g lure rod. I most likely will do though at some point because why the hell not I guess, but what really stands out when you first see the rod is the use of what Zenaq call their “RG Guide System”. It would be worth having a perusal of this page here before reading any further, because it will explain exactly what Zenaq are claiming with this rather unique system. Zenaq is a high-end Japanese fishing rod company and they definitely do things their own way - which I might add I can’t help but massively respect………….

So if you ever pick this and some other Zenaq rods up, what you will notice is a hell of a lot of very small guides, with that first guide up from the reel being particularly strange looking. Check out the photo above and you will see what I mean. I can’t pretend that I wasn’t somewhat hesitant when I started fishing with this Zenaq Snipe S86XX Longcast 8'6'' 8-40g lure rod, because we have all fished with any number of fishing rods over the years essentially rung conventionally with guides/rings we are perfectly familiar with. I do remember being told various “facts” many years ago about how a beachcaster had to be rung in a certain way because of how line comes off a multiplier and so on, but when I first went to Namibia to fish for sharks off the beach, I was taken aback by how small the guides were on their rods. They were fishing with bigger multiplier reels, heavier mainlines, and also for far bigger fish than we were ever going to catch - and there were no issues at all with those smaller guides on the long shore rods. A lot more of the Southern African rock and surf fishing is done with spinning reels these days I might add, so rods tend to be rung a bit differently.

And it’s the same with the lure rods we might turn to. You expect to see the first guide around a certain, relatively large size, and if a tackle company puts particularly small tip guides on the end of a lure rod you tend to get anglers complaining that either they can’t wind their lure clip down through the guides after fishing - really?! - or that their leader knot gets caught on the guides and snaps their lure off. For sure this whole modern lure fishing thing is always moving forward, but we are still cling to various conventions I guess.

So you pick up a lure rod like this very expensive Zenaq Snipe S86XX Longcast 8'6'' 8-40g lure rod and I defy you not to think something along the lines of “no way is this voodoo stuff going to work properly”. Then you put that first cast out though and it’s literally whisper-quiet. Somehow that strange looking first guide literally “crushes” those loops of braid down almost immediately, so that what flies through the rest of the rod is perfectly flat and uniform braid. The photo above of Danny casting one of the Zenaq Plaisir rods which also has their RG Guide System on the rod shows exactly what is going on, and I can assure you that other lure rods rung with more conventional guides do not see such a noticeable and rapid “crushing” of those loops which are spilling off the spinning reel. Whether Zenaq’s system does indeed provide the benefits they claim is up to the user to decide, but if you use good quality, smooth braid then you can’t help but notice how quiet it’s flying through the guides, and how smoothly your lure goes out. I don’t believe Zenaq are claiming any distance advantages, but they do claim what they call “Perfect Cast Feel”.

Aside from their other claims - “Intuitive Lure Action”, “Greater Sensitivity”, “Power and Suppleness”, and “Decreased PE line trouble” (see this page here for more info) - the one that interests me the most is “Decreased PE line trouble”. This Zenaq Snipe S86XX Longcast 8'6'' 8-40g lure rod is remarkably sensitive anyway, with the usual caveat being that greater sensitivity also depends upon numerous external factors such as wind, depth, waves, lure type etc. I am not going to hook a bass in the UK or Ireland which will ever test what Zenaq claim in their description of “Power and Suppleness”, and “Intuitive Lure Action” is going to be as subjective as increased sensitivity.

By no means am I refuting any of Zenaq’s claims by the way, because there’s something very interesting going on with how their RG Guide system is working with high-quality braids. Note that an angler I know thought there was initially something wrong with this RG Guide system because it was so noisy when retrieving his lures, but he changed over to a smoother 8-strand braid and everything changed completely. I haven’t tried a more rough style of braid on this rod myself, but with something like Sufix 131 or this Varivas Avani Sea Bass Max Power PEX9 braid that I have been trying out recently, as I said it’s quite something how quietly and smoothly the braid flies out on the cast.

This is my mate Andy casting this Zenaq Snipe S86XX Longcast 8'6'' 8-40g lure rod

So what’s this “Decreased PE line trouble” all about then? Zenaq says this about it: “The RG guide system decreases PE line troubles dramatically. The frequent guide spacing and small ring diameter work in unison to suppress line oscillation even the thinnest PE lines. On top of that, the assist guide set 4at the very tip virtually eliminates all line wrapping around the tip”. I wouldn’t have expected any wind-knots or other such line management issues with the spinning reels and braids I have been using on this Zenaq rod, but interestingly I can’t recall a single instance of the dreaded tip-wrap which is so annoying. I guess that if I owned the rod it would happen at some point, but I have fished with it just enough to be very interested in what Zenaq’s RG Guide System is doing. I do wonder if this RG Guide System might help a bit with more troublesome spinning reels, but I haven’t tested this specifically so I can’t comment.

On that webpage I told you to look at you will notice how the system is slightly different depending on the type of rod, and this particular and very high-end Zenaq Snipe S86XX Longcast 8'6'' 8-40g sits in Zenaq’s “Medium - Light Game Setting” within their RG System. I will review this fascinating lure rod at some point soon, but for the time being, you all have a good weekend and let’s hope that tomorrow’s wind forecast isn’t quite as strong from the north west as they are saying………………

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