I’ve been fishing with the Muse Swimbait rods from 13 Fishing for about a year now. Here are my thoughts on them for guys thinking about getting one for throwing really big baits.
The ring locks on the foregrip secure a large swimbait baitcasting reel to the oversized Muse Black Swimbait rods very solidly. The grips are larger than your average rod and the reel seat and foregrip give you feel to the blank.
One of my favorite things about the Muse Black Swimbait rods is the oversized grips. When you are putting that much torque on a rod a larger grip is easier on your hands when casting. And because the grips are extra large you can rest them under your arm and on your side comfortably on the retrieve to give you a lever when setting the hook.
I like that I can rest the Muse under my arm while winding a big bait and still have my hands in contact with the blank. That’s nice when I’m slow winding a big bait and try to feel it change direction and counting rocks on the bottom.
The custom grips are really well made and thought out. I like that I can lay my arm down the side of the rod and not kink my arm so hard while in retrieve mode.
The rods look like pool cues but they actually fish really nice. The extra size of the rods seems to absorb the weight on the load of the cast and the tip has the right amount of bend that you don’t feel like you’re trying to be precise with a broom stick.
Everything on the Muse Black Swimbait rods is heavy duty. The reel seat, the grips and the guides are all matched perfectly with the larger frame of the 36 Ton Torray blanks.
The Muse Black rods are powerful but will load under force which is nice when you get a big fish in those last critical 10 or 20 feet when preparing to land them.
I’m able to keep my wrists and hands inline while retrieve big glides and heavy swimbaits on the Muse Black rods.
The Heavy 8-foot MBCBH is one of my favorites. I throw a lot of big shad swimbaits in that 2-4 ounce range and I like the rod because I can fish it out deep but also sit back and target cast on docks and along shallow shade lines. I think that is a great starter rod for a lot of guys wanting to get into throwing big baits.
I’ve had a lot of fun with the Muse Swimbait rods from 13 Fishing. I’ve managed a handful of fish but so far my biggest from Kentucky Lake was just shy of 6 pounds this spring while casting along shady bluegill bed banks and around docks. You might have seen this shot in my Bucca’s Bull Gill review earlier this year. I was able to cast parallel to shore with pretty precise long roll casts and fishing it fast with erratic stops and twitches and got one big one to react around a bluegill bed. I caught some deep fish as well on soft swimbaits on heavy lead heads on this rod. But it was a bit heavy for 1-ounce swimbaits. But it was nice to throw bigger plastics on 2-ounce heads and fishing a lot faster with heavier heads deep.
You can find the Muse Black Swimbait rods at Tacklewarehouse.com and retailers that carry 13 Fishing rods and reels.
