13 Fishing Omen Ice Casting 32" Medium: preliminary review

[slipperybob]

Omen Ice casting 32" rod in Medium power retails $60 - new 2021-22

Listed key feature on the product tag:
J36T Blank
Evolve Ported Reel Seat
Portuguese 3A Full Grip Cork Handle
Evolve Stainless Steel Guides with Titanium Inserts

So I measured the full length of the rod and it came to 32 3/8th inches.  I did pick out the longest one between all the retail rod models and this one was eyeballed at about 1/4" longer.  So I'm pretty sure they would normally measure to essentially 32" and maybe a tad slightly longer.  The full handle measurement came to 8 1/4" length with a reel mounted on it.  I mounted a Shimano CU70HG reel.  This leaves a little gap in the reel seat and locking nut assembly.   It seems a bit off in feel and looks at that spot.  The cork handle measure to 3 1/2" in length.  The entire handle assembly is 8 1/2" in length.

I threaded the line through the line guides and it looks good.  The titanium inserts by description just looks like ceramics as there are 4 plus tip.  Upon checking for flex, the rod blank loads up well and feels like as expected of a Median power rod.  When I check for torsion roll over, there was a considerable amount of line guide rolling over.  This particular results may signify for benefiting from an acid wrap rod.  There was just barely any line rub onto the blank with a full flex load.

The rubberized reel seat feels great.  After I removed the plastic covering there was a lot of cork putty and quite a bit of dust powder.  Closer examination shows quite a bit of pitting filled.  Overall the looks are wonderful and assembly appears to be almost top notch.  Looking at the current 13 Fishing web site, there is no information on this rod.  Yet they have listed all the info on the spinning rods.

Looking forward to it's first field test...

[slipperybob]

First ice trip of the season 21-22 and I put the rod on priority use.  Paired with the Shimano Curado 70HG and 7.9# Stroft GTM.  The only lure I used on this rod was the 3/16th oz. Major Craft Jigpara blade.  The rod did it's job.  While lure jigging, I didn't get that wow feeling as compared to a Thorne Bros Walleye Sweetheart medium power rod, but that's a rod in a different category.  As far as retail shelf production, I would say the Omen Ice Casting rod is pretty impressive.  The white tip painted section contrast is good for better visual detection.  The rod worked just fine even for small solid bite detection feel.  I didn't even rely on visual cues.  It has the correct load for this 3/16th oz. lure and when hooked up with fish, it loaded just right as well.  None of the crappies I caught was over 10" so this rod does just fine for typical abundance of fish.  There was no feel of line guide torsion roll on these small typical fish.

While the overall rod may feel sort of reminiscing similar to an Ugly Stick Dock Runner in feel (as similar to other Ugly Stick ice rods in medium power), it differs by once hooked up to fish.  The rod has the ideal tip flex and backbone for a Medium power rod.  While I do not own any other retail manufacture medium power ice rods in a bait casting rod, I will say that is better than other so far.  Good line guide size and insert rings, not oversized nor bulky appearance.  Very good bait casting handle and reel seat. Form and function is accomplished.  That is comparing to the old Fenwick Elite Tech 27" medium and Abu Garcia Volatile 29" medium rods.  The St. Croix Mojo 34" casting rod is a little better however it is MH and H power only.  If only St. Croix would've developed a medium power ice rod.  Even better if retail manufactures actually developed Medium Light and Light power casting ice rods.  This would open up a huge niche category for ice rods.

Even with just a one day field test and very minimal actual testing it is a solid performer.  I have no problem recommending this rod to anyone who's looking to try a casting set up.  Looking forward to more use...

[slipperybob]

I guess I never followed up on the after action review on this rod.  Due to the rod being a medium power, I did factor in using  lures of mostly 1/4 oz. weight.  The two lures that I tested out mostly on this rod happened to be from Major Craft.  The Jigpara blade at 1/4 oz. and the Jigpara Spin Micro at 1/4 oz. weight.  The Jigpara blade at a 1/4 oz. weight provided much better response in vibration lift as well as rod feedback over that of the 3/16th oz. version.  Although I mostly did just crappie fishing, this rod did just fine.  It was sensitive enough for detecting light bites, although I was using 1/4 oz. weight lures.  I did find the rod to perform very well when hooked up on walleyes.  Although I have a preference to fish my Thorne Bros. custom casting rods, this retail rod has position itself in my starting line up.  It just sort of grows on me. That's says a lot for it.

I will say that some minor improvements to this rod would be a better quality line guides.  The current ones aren't bad.  It's just that often times subtle changes makes for subtle performance merits that does leads to the difference in how one feels about a rod's response and vibration transmission.  If they ever produce a medium light power casting rod, the current line guides would be obtuse heavy.

To date, even 13 Fishing still has not published on their website the Omen Ice casting rod. They still only list a bunch of spinning rods.  Really they're doing themselves a disservice.  I guess they're pushing their inline ice reel set ups.