Steve Starling Signature Series Rods Steve Starling Signature Series Fishing Magazine 1997 Return to  Online

Fishing rods have certainly changed since I picked up my first solid fibreglass, two -piece "Mundoo" more than 30 years ago! I caught plenty of fish on that heavy yellow parabolic rod with its chromed-brass ferrule, folding stripper guide and sloppy action. If I had to, I guess I could still catch fish on it today. Happily, I don't have to.

And there in a nutshell, is the rationale of modern fishing rod evolution. Of course it is still possible to catch fish on old-fashioned, outdated gear. However, it's possible to catch those same fish (and probably a lot more of them) on modern, lightweight equipment which is a joy to own and use.

The main difference lies in the level of personal satisfaction and sheer pleasure involved in the process. By becoming lighter, more responsive and increasingly sensitive - while at the same time offering dramatically increased power - today's fishing rods have, in my opinion, greatly enhanced our contract with the entire angling process. A good term for this, the one I often use, is finesse, which my dictionary defines as "delicacy of execution; subtlety of discrimination". To use a cruder metaphor, it's the difference between bludgeoning an opponent into unconsciousness with a heavy club and immobilizing that same adversary with a few deft karate moves!

By being lighter and more responsive, modern rods also directly increase our personal comfort and, therefore our level of contentment and satisfaction at the end of a long fishing session...modern rods are simply easier and more fun to use than their predecessors! Advances in rods also reflect, and even motivate, parallel evolution in all other forms of tackle from reels and lines back to lures and hooks. To illustrate these changes, I only need think back to the very first barramundi I ever caught, some 15 years ago, and compare its capture with a few of those barra I've taken more recently.

That first barra, a chrome-plated 12lb salty from a creek on the back of Hinchinbrook Island, slammed an imported minnow fitted with heavy duty, re-curved trebles that I'd laboriously sharpened by hand. This lure was connected to stretchy monofilament line fished through a 2m hollow fibreglass rod that bent all the way back into the handles, topped by a heavy baitcaster reel with a lumpy bumpy drag.

Some of the more recent barra captures were made using 1.6m high modules graphite rods that weighed half as much as that old glass stick. These wonderful new rods were matched to silk-smooth Shimano Chronarch or Calcutta reels, gelspun polyethylene super line and a mixture of Aussie-made and Rapala minnows; mostly retrofitted with light gauge, chemically sharpened hooks.

I'll never forget the thrill of that first Hinchinbrook barra, nor the way my hands shook as I held it. I wouldn't alter or surrender those memories for the world. But I also wouldn't willingly switch back to using that old fashioned gear! With the late 90's tackle I employed to catch my most recent batch of barra, I actually felt the intake of water as the fish popped their jaws behind the plug, a micro-second before the jarring impact of the chemically sharpened hooks finding their mark. The deceptively powerful little graphite rod then responded to every head-shake and jolt transmitted up that fine filament of low stretch braid, yet still had reverse power in its butt end to put the brakes on if a strong fish lunged the sanctuary of a deep snag.

Today, barra are actually no easier to find at places like Hinchinbrook Island than they were 15 years ago. In fact they're probably harder to catch, especially at the 5kg-plus size of my first fish. For this practical reason - along with a lot of other more estoteric and aesthetic ones - I wouldn't go there today without the very best in model tackle and the finest fishing rods I could afford.

For me, fishing is simply too important to make do or get by with inferior gear, and I suspect that many of you reading this feel exactly the same way. For a long time, it was difficult or even impossible to obtain the very vest in state-of-the-art fishing rod technology from a factory-made product. Some production line rods may have used the best blanks available at the time, but there componentry, design and execution often fell short of the sophistication offered by skilled home builders or professional customisers. Just as importantly, they lacked that little extra something which helps us to personalize and "connect with" an important tool like a fishing rod.

Making it 'feel' right

Because a fine fishing rod becomes an extension of our own bodies when used properly, it's not only important that it works well, but also that it "feels" right. For a long time, it's been hard to find this special "feel" in a factory-rolled rod.

Happily this situation began to change for the better during the late 1980s, as manufacturers finally got their acts together and began to take a closer look at the things home-builders and customisers had been doing for years. As a result, the standard of factory-made rods improved dramatically, and increasing numbers of keen anglers began buying their off-the-rack rods instead of building them or having them built.

The Shimano Rod Story

The folks at Shimano Australia would be the first to admit that their Japanese parent company had a somewhat patchy history in the area of fishing rod manufacture, particularly in the early days. For a long time, it seemed as if the makers of the world's best fishing reels simply couldn't get their act together on rods.

There were, of course, a few exceptions to this rule, including the likes of the immensely popular Bullwhip series, as well as some of those great BeastMaster bluewater sticks. And, at the lower end of the price range, few could dent that Shimano offered some of the best value budget rods on the market, especially in their various combo packages. None-the-less, there were far too many gaps and anomalies in the mid to upper-end ranges of premium rods, particularly amongst models specifically suited to Australasian conditions.

Not being one to sit on his hands and do nothing the face of such a situation, Shimano's Australian boss John Dunphy decided to seize the initiative and develop a series of premium, factory-built rods for the local market. To this end, he called in Ian Miller and myself as his design and development consultants and set us a rather daunting task: to develop a series of about a dozen sticks that would handle 90 per cent of the recreational fishing done in Australia, and to do it as well or better than anything else on the market. Finally - in addition to being functional, state-of-the-art and aesthetically pleasing - these new rods also had to be highly competitive and affordable.

The underlying concept was to offer the quality and class of custom-built rods at factory-rolled prices - and this was an idea which greatly appealed to me. I was a little less sure how Ian Miller would react. After all, as one of the world's leading rod crafters, his livelihood largely depends on the custom side of the market. Wouldn't he be doing himself out of business by designing custom-quality products for mass production by a major tackle company?

As it turned out, Ian was extremely enthusiastic about John Dunphy's concept, and keen to be involved.

The Signature Series

Ian and I started out with a list of about 10 rod models, slowly built this up to almost 20, and then began to pare it back. At the time of writing there looks likely to be around 13 or 14 rods in the initial launch of the Steve Starling Signature Series, which is planned for the 1996 Sydney Fishing Tackle show in late winter. A couple of additional models may well be added to the range in 1997/ 98.

The process involved in designing, testing and modifying each rod in the new range was extremely time consuming. First, Ian crafted a prototype of each stick using a variety of existing blanks; cutting, trimming and extending them to find the precise action we desired, then experimenting with componentry, guide spacing and other dimensions in order to optimize the rods performance.

Next, we both cast and finished with these prototype rods under a range of conditions. Our testing process involved "normal" fishing requirements, as well as deliberately "over-gunning" the rods with heavy lines and casting weights to test for potential weaknesses. When we were both completely happy with the results, two samples of each rod were built and one of these was shipped to Shimano's headquarters in Japan.

When they'd rolled a blank to match the dimensions we'd supplied and built their production-run model, Shimano shipped this back to Australia for us to compare with our "control" sample. On several occasions, our comments were along the lines of "close, but no cigar", and we sent Shimano rod engineers back to the drawing board for another try, despite the obvious expense involved in such a process. We regarded it vitally important to get things right, and John Dunphy agreed. Close enough was clearly not good enough.

However, on a surprising number of occasions, the Japanese engineers got it right first time, and in at least a couple of memorable instances, the Shimano product actually outperformed the sample we'd originally supplied! These people obviously know plenty about rod building - all they'd needed was the correct input from those who new exactly what a fine fishing line should actually do!

Most of the first release models will definitely be available throughout Australia well before Christmas this year, and will be stocked by many of the country's better tackle outlets. 

Steve Starling

PROFILE:

Ian Miller

Ian Miller is without doubt Australias best-known designer and crafter of high quality, custom built rods. But many local anglers mighn't realise Ian's work is also highly regarded overseas. From the marlin grounds of Hawaii and the long range of tuna boats of California to the Kakap ponds of Indonesia and the stocked largemouth bass lakes of Japan, Ian Miller rods are increasingly becoming the benchmark buy which all others are judged.
Ian began building rods at the tender age of 12. During his late teens and early 20s, he spent several years fishing his way around the northern half of Australia.
Returning to Sydney in 1981, Ian went to work as a full-time rod builder, first for the late Hank Newman, and then for several other tackle companies and specialist retail outlets. By the early 1990s he had clearly emerged as our premier modern rod crafter, and was exporting increasing numbers of high qualiy rods throughout the Pacific Basin, as well as to North America and Asia.