Lou Caruso Review of ODM Surf Rod

See below by Lou Caruso or click on the above picture to visit http://www.surfcastersjournal.com/few-new-things-by-lou-caruso/ Few new things …. Less then a week to Striper Day. I’m very excited for this show. We here on Long Island have not had a good show in a number of years now. What I’m really excited about is there are some new products out there you may be interested in. They include both blanks and finished rods. Last year during the Somerset Show, I received a call from a friend asking if I ever heard of a company called ODM. I honestly had to tell him I never heard of them. He proceeded to tell me about a rod they were selling. He said the rod was impressive, felt good and was going at a good price. I went to look at their website. The rod was the Frontier NFX Series. They were selling as a promotional item with no warranty. I dismissed them at once because, 1- no warranty and 2 – you could not acquire blanks. A month or so later I received a call from the owner Steve Youn. While speaking with him, he explained that the reason for no warranty was this was a limited run of rods and he was already working on a better design and would not have inventory for replacement of the old rods. He wanted to be sure to get the new rods perfect before releasing. He also told me he would contact me when he felt the rods were right so I could take a look. I kind of forgot about it once the fall run started. Then I got a call from a friend up in Conn. He had bought one of the rods and was fishing it up at Cape Cod Canal. Said it cast extremely well and had a ton of backbone. About a month ago I received a call from Steve. He sounded very excited about the new lineup and would I like to test them. I invited him to the shop. When he and his crew showed up, they were the nicest guys you would want to meet. After chatting for a while I realized we have the similar thoughts about the way a surf rod should be built including actions and weight ratings. We went to the water and he proceeded to put reels on his entire lineup of surf rods. He has two lines. Genesis and Frontier X. Both of these rods were very impressive. The Genesis is a more moderate action rod. Well balanced and cast very well with lots of backbone. The Frontier X is the Cadillac of the lineup. A moderate fast rod with a ton of backbone. These rods are light and responsive. After casting through the lineup I realized, if your throwing the Genesis 9’ or 11’ in the ¾-4 weight rating the rods felt the same. Same with the Frontier X. That is not something you find all the time. After casting, I had the pleasure of watching Steve cast the rods. (Geeze the man can cast)…. I noticed he was putting very little effort into his casts and the distance was incredible !!!!!. Check out their website at: http://www.odmrods.com/index.html You can also check out the rods in person and meet Steve at Striper Day.