Review - Snowbee Deep Blue 9 ft 8 weight 4 piece - £135

Snowbee Deep Blue 8 Weight

Its not that often I get to try, never mind review a rod that only costs £130. If I got embroiled in the sub £150 range I'd still be testing well past free bus passes and false teeth! Rods of this price are so numerous and so quickly "updated" that it's like paining the Forth bridge. As soon as you look like nearing the finish there's just as many to test again. The fact that this rod also comes with a guarantee just shows that you can get a lot for your hard earned Fishing tackle fund nowadays.

But is it any good?
For a rod of this price it is nicely presented in a reinforced cordura tube with cordura rod sock. Plenty of protection for the far flung traveler or just the boot of your car. The finish of the rod is actually quite good for a rod of this price but there are obvious marks that this rod is built to a budget. Wraps aren't quite straight and there are tag marks under the varnish but I could live with them. The wraps themselves are black on a strangely alluring turquoise-blue blank. Nice colour even if it doesn't really go with black whippings. The cork is good quality and the rod is fitted with a longer than usual and nicely shaped fighting butt. The Snake rings on the rod are chunky, which I like to see on SW rods. They may not be any stronger that top of the line fine wire snakes but the fact they look stronger goes a lot towards building confidence.

Fighting butt

The reel seat is a channel lock type but with only one tightening ring. During the test this had a tendency to jam when changing reels but eventually we found that pushing it and then tightening the ring tightened it up fine. This may just be because the rod is new and may loosen off with use. It would have been nice to see a second check ring on there for security. You don't want your new reel falling off onto barnacle encrusted rocks!

Stripper rings Top: Snowbee Zircon Stripper Bottom: Snowbee Deep Blue

The Stripper rings were unusual. They are fairly high but don't have the usual curved supports. This meant the ring was very narrow and hence had a tendency for the line to wrap around it during the shoot. The whole reason for the curved supports is to reduce this effect. They were also quite small and could have been a little bigger to allow tangle free shooting. Ironically, the freshwater rods from Snowbee do have the curved supports on their stripper rings.

Yeah! Yeah! But how does it cast?

Actually, very, very well! This is a very powerful rod! Rated an 8 weight, I tried the rod with several different types of line and it handled them all very well. In the hand, without reel the rod feels slightly heavy but powerful. In the advertising blurb on the Snowbee website it says "The powerful carbon blanks have thicker wall sections, for strength and durability when playing large powerful fish in harsh conditions" and this is actually what it feels like. With a reel on the rod it balances out quite well.
The lines I used with the rod were the Vision Extreme Distance 8 weight, the SA Expert distance 8 weight and the Sshoot distance 8 weight. Each line has it's own characteristics but all went over 35 meters in the street outside the house. The SA Expert distance bent the rod more than the others and with it's longer head, this is not surprising but even so, the rod was very capable of carrying over 20 meters without issue or feeling soggy. On the other hand, this isn't such a good characteristic if your casting isn't up to par. I'd suggest you may like to use this rod with a 9 weight if you're a beginner. This rod definitely needs a good flick and a hard stop. But if you give it this, it sings!

Action wise, it's a stiff middle to tip actioned rod that is surprisingly fast and has very little tip bounce when you stop it. It's certainly something I like in a rod. Swish it and it stops dead. No wiggling from this baby.

Feel is reasonable and I could tell what was going on with the line during the cast but it's never going to be able to compete with an Orvis Zero gravity Tip Flex. But then again, It's a fraction of the price so you can't expect it to and it has a lot more feel than some more expensive rods I've tried.

who is this rod suited for? This is quite a quandary because generally, better casters are going to want to spend a lot more than £130 on a rod. So who is this rod aimed at? Thinking about it, it'd make a perfect cheap back up rod for those who travel to warmer climes for their fishing and could easily handle Bonefish and Permit. It would also suit the improving caster who wants to know the performance is there in his rod should he ever need it on his path up the fly casting ladder.

And it's got a lifetime guarantee!

How does it compare with other rods in this price range? I really have no idea because I haven't tried many of them. Would I be pleased paying £130 for this rod? I think I would be! I may be tempted to change the stripping rings which isn't a big job but overall, I could definitely use it for UK and foreign fishing. You get a lot of performance for a very low price.

Test 2.

Just to make sure the test wasn't subject to the good mood I was in yesterday and I was viewing the rod through rose tinted Glasses, myself and Danny the Mullet King went out and tested it again today. It's still just as good and if anything even better. We were both chucking some serious distances with it today in a less than favorable wind. Danny got his personal best ever with it at 31.5 meters (measured!). Scary seeing as he'd only 13! We both agreed it likes the SA Expert distance line the most which bent it that little bit more. This would equate to a 9 weight average WF line in terms of weight.

Watching someone else cast it , I'd change my description of middle to tip to just middle actioned but with it's inherent stiffness, don't read into that that's its soft.

Overall, its a excellent rod for the money with a few little niggles that I could probably live with.

If this has whetted your appetite, you can get them in the UKSWFF shop.

See you in the Forum

Tight loops.

Carl

Carl Hutchinson is a qualified instructor with the EFFA and FFFUSA and runs saltwater fly fishing Mullet with www.corporateflyfishing.com He is a member of the 55 yard club and current Roxtons International Saltwater Fly Casting Champion and has fished extensively in many saltwater locations and specialises in saltwater fly fishing for Salmon in Canada.