0n 22.12.13. Top fishing store organized the very first Sexy Mrs.Claus Cup at Ontario lake near Zagreb. Maximum number of fishermen, 50 of them, participated in this event. Tomislav Segedi won 1st prize with 91 cm long pike. Congratulations!
Top fishing shop crew would like to thank all of them and to the sponsors who supported this event as well: Praktični ribolov, Idra varalice, Olivari d.o.o., Apipharma d.o.o. and Artena big game fishing. Enjoy the photos!
Some great things happen by an accident. We avarded hundredth who liked spineri.com on our facebook profile and it turned out he makes jerkbait gliders which he promised to send when finished. We promised we´ll put them ona test, and if they satisfy, we´ll make presentation here. As you can see, we are satisfied, and some more. In Drago´s own words, all started in late nineties when Drago and his friend Nikola saw Rapala Shallow shad rap in fishing magazine. It was nowhere to be bought, so they made it! 25 years later, first jerkbaits are coming out from a these 2 manufacture. They started with 2 models: Ragnarok and Smaug. Both of them are hand made out of linden tree, they are 4 times coated, hand painted, and protected by an epoxy resin at the end.
Ragnarok found his name in Norse mythology, Ragnarok is a series of future events, including a great battle between gods and giants, a battle in which everybody gets killed, and almost all world is destroyed. In reality, Ragnarok is 15 cm (6 inches) long and 50 g ( 1 ¾ oz) heavy glider which will ´destroy´ pike. According to Drago, customers will be able to choose exact decor in the future. Ragnarok itself has a great glide, a good body roll and belly flash and makes a lot of mess in a little space. It´s not a ordinary way to use a glider, but this one can be twiched with sharp, short quick downsnaps of a rod tip. That way it shows it´s belly and flickers while it sinks between snaps.
Pikey Smaug is named after one of the last big dragons of Middle-earth, which can be seen these days in theaters in the Hobbit. Even if you’re not Tolkien´s fan, you should pay attention on Smaug. With his respectable dimensions, 20 cm (8 inches) and 65 g (2 ¼ oz), Smaug represents serious lure, or a nice meal, if you ask pike. It imitates a small pike with its shape and therefore is somewhat unconventional in the world of gliders. Due to the shape of the body that easily cuts thru water, it has really nice action and it is easy to get it to ´walk the dog´ under surface. Its glides can be as a meter long if you work it slowly. If you work it faster, it can have as much as a 3-4 side to side glides in one square meter. If you work it with shorter and sharper jerks, it works only a couple of centimetres under surface. That makes it usable even in a shallow water, as well as in waters with lots of vegetation which often holds a good pike population. You can let it sink as well if you´re fishing in deeper water.
Smaug is manufactured in 2 decors for a start. It has great belly flash and in combination with wide glide, it lures pike from greater distances. What you need for casting these baits, is a short extra heavy action rod. It takes only a little effort to make them glide, because they are very well tuned. Both can be retrieved steadilly as well, in that way they produce ´S´ kind of an action, especially Smaug. Considering these baits are 100% hand made, be ready to wait for them for a couple of days, or weeks. These lures deserve it by all means. First test models already swim in waters of Croatia, Denmark, England, Sweden and so on and as we hear, first impressions are positive. As Drago says, ´Our goal is to make lures with good catching ratio all over the world by testing our baits in the waters of region, as well as in other parts of the world´. We have no doubt that Sipac jerk manufacture will accomplish their goal.
Spineri.com gives them 2 thumbs up!
Car lights that are coming towards me only now and then cuts thru the fog while I drive down the road. Lake is in the fog as well. I park by the water, coming out of a car and like a robot start to assemble my rod. Reel, line, wire trace, spinnerbait. I am ready. Spinnerbait is pretty beaten already, fire tiger pattern on a blade exists in traces only. It caught quite some pike this autumn. In vest pockets I have couple more spinnerbaits, few weedless spoons, some swimbaits rigged weightless and couple of twitchbaits. More than enough for this time of year. I am alone at this side of a lake, on the other side there is just one guy. He´s sitting still by his rods.
Fallen leaves rustle under my feet and the soles of boots sinking into a thin layer of mud below while I walk. Autumn is definitely here, a time when fish eat more so they could survive thru the cold winter that is coming.On a first spot most of water vegetation has fallen down to the bottom already. Only a few leaves of water lily are on the surface. I can work it with spinnerbaits just like that. First cast is along the bank, and rest of them are more and more out on a water. Shortly, one is tricked. Unfair fight is over very fast. Few moments later, (un)lucky pikey is released and he is coming back to the seeming safety of water lilies. In a next field of water lilies nice pike follows my lure, but it won´t bite. I am rigging mogambo grub on a weightless worm hook, and casting it in a direction where I saw a pike.
I animate it with short twitches of a rod tip. First time around nothing happens, but in the second cast there it is. It came out of nowhere, it´s unbeilevable how fast it appeared behind the lure! It is standing still and fixating a grub. Only its pectoral fins nervously. Gentle twitch of a rod tip results with a momentarily bite. It packed it in its mouth and it slowly turns away. I lower rod tip so I can set a hook better, line straightens, and BAM, I am whacking it. It is pumping on the other side of a line, rod is bent, but it lasts a couple of seconds only. Worm hook didn´t break thru, or didn´t come thru at all. Weedlees is fishless sometimes, especially in pike fishing. Later, couple of more pikeys couldn´t resist spinnerbait blades flashes and then sun started showing on a horizon. The fog lifted and let sun to bathe in a lake. Guy on the other side of a lake is packing his third pikey in a net. They were doomed a moment they got greedy over a dace mounted on a triple hook.
We present you 2 spin rods:
Garbolino Ghetto rider ul and Garbolino Game hunter microlure.
Ghetto rider
Ghetto rider is a fancy spin rod which will hardly leave you indifferent. Hot red blank with Fuji K series guides, split handle made of red and black eva foam and Fuji skeleton split reel halter will leave you speechless even for a moment. To some, design like that will be avant-garde and progressive, to others it´ll be a total miss. If you prefer classic rods, I doubt it you´ll even take it in your hands and try what it feels like. Well, too bad for you.
First round guys from Top fishing store ordered sold out in a day or 2. I only managed to try one last left that was reserved for someone. I was stunned. I thought it over and ordered one eventually. I assigned it for trout fishing and couldn´t wait for the season to start. First half an hour I fished with it, I thought I couldn´t set a hook. Truth is I felt every stone my inline spinnerbait stratched. It felt like a bite because of a super sensitive rop tip. First fish i hooked was a small brown trout. Every one who caught one knows how nervous that fish is once when hooked. Over the rod tip I felt every single move, every twitch it made. That trout could jiggle for an hour and it wouldn´t fall off. I cuddle it for a while and then I realised it can wrestle with much bigger fish. So it did.
Game hunter
Game hunter, partly because of a camouflage pattern and thicker handle above reel holder (25 mm diameter), at first looks kinda beefy. For real, there are not too many differences compared to Ghetto rider. It is 30 g heavier than Ghett rider, but once you mount reel on, you can hardly feel the difference. Reel weighting around 250 g works well for both of them. Game hunter has normal guides, finish is nice, and it´s quite similar to Ghetto rider with it´s action. Same as with Ghetto rider, blank is super fast and sensitive, rod tip detects shy bites well, but it has strong backbone which can cope with bigger fish than you could imagine. Although print on a blank says microlure, this blank can cope with normal lures without any problem. That is work horse, for fishermen who catch fish and who don´t bother with high end components and make up on the rod. Considering we are dealing with 2 very similar blanks, general impression can be said in 3 words: baby face killers. In 4 words, wolf in sheep’s clothes. In 5 words.. No, I am just kidding. Both of these 2 are great for what they are made for. Thay cast and feel small, UL lures superb. On the other hand, you can cast a 20-25 grams of a weight with it. 10 cm slit shad with 15 g jig hook, for a n example. We did it, it is possible. How ever, they feel the best with softbaits up to 7 cm and 7-8 g, twitchbaits between 5-8 cm and metal jigs up to 10 g. We landed few bass around 1,5 kilo, barbel around 2, couple of asps over 60 cm, and so on. These boys can do it. Ghetto rider is more expensive because of Fuji k series guides (which trully are tangle free!), Fuji reel halter, it weights less and its design is great. If you ask me. On the other hand, if you like ´more common´ rods better, with Game hunter is a rod for you. Whichever you choose between these 2, you can´t go wrong.
Game hunter je radni štap, za ribiče koji love ribu i ne zamaraju se opremom, šminkom i high end komponentama. Nadam se da mi nitko neće zamjeriti kada napišem da je game hunter ekonomična verzija ghetto ridera, i to jako, jako isplativa.
S obzirom da se radi o jako sličnim blankovima, opći dojam za oba se da izreči u 3 riječi: ubojice dječjeg lica. U malo više riječi, oba štapa odlično odrađuju ono za što su namjenjeni: bacaju i osjećaju male varalice, bilo da se radi o jig streameru vezanom na 2 g glavici, ili nekom tviču od 5 cm. I kad lupi manja riba, zabava je zagarantirana zahvaljujući punoj špici koja odradi i prenese i najmanje trzaje. Pri drilu veće ribe, ostatak štapa ulazi u fajt i sa ribama do 2-3 kg nema problema, pa makar se radilo o mreni oko dvice u jakom štromu. Klenovi, bassevi, ili pastrve oko 50, kao i boleni veći od toga nemaju šanse. Mada smo bacali i 15-20 g teške jig udice sa 10 cm dugim silikoncima, preko 10 g i 7 cm dugih silikonaca ne bih išao. Isto vrijedi za razne žlice i pilkere. 5-10 g je optimum. Što se voblera tiče, 5-7 dugi tvičevi bi bili optimalni, a do 10 cm nema nikakvih problema sa kontrolom i vođenjem. ´Meps´ dvojka je taman, a ni sa trojkama nema problema.
Svoju cijenu ghetto opravdava opremom (fuji k stvarno je tangle free!), malom težinom, jako dobrim općim dojmom pa i dizajnom koji je nesvakidašnji. Fujijev split halter, koliko god čudno izgledao na prvu odlično leži u ruci i poboljšava osjetljivost, jer su i dlan i kažiprst na blanku. S druge strane, ako vas ne smeta malo aljkavija završna obrada, ako trebate radni štap, za stvarno malo novaca (oko 400 kn) u game hunteru dobijete štap sličnih performansi. S obzirom da s oba štapa možete pokriti ultra light, light pa i medium light ribolov donekle, ozbiljno konkuriraju za best buy do 500 kn, odnosno 1000 kn.
Specifications:
Game hunter
lenght: 2,22 m
tip diameter: 1,2 mm
butt diameter: 10,2 mm
handle lenght: 44 cm
lenght from reel till the end: 37 cm
weight: 144 g
casting weight: 1- 7 g
guides: 9
space between guides: 90-32-24-19-15-12-11-10-9 (cm)
diameter 24-15-10-8-6-6-5-5-5 (mm)
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Ghetto rider
lenght: 217
tip diameter: 1,1 mm
butt diameter: 9,6 mm
handle lenght: 38
lenght from reel till the end: 33
weight: 115 g
casting weight: 1- 7 g
guides: 9, fuji k series
space between guides: 92-30-21-18-15-12-11-9-8
diameter: 24-15-12-10-8-7-7-5-5
