Savage Gear Tactical Medium Game 8’3’’ (2.51m) 7-25g and 8’10’’ (2.69m) 10-30g lure rods review - £84.99 each, how good are these things?
Wanna know what’s going to slightly bother me about this review? The fact that some of you will quite understandably read this and think nope, I don’t believe it, not with Henry doing paid consultancy work with Pure Fishing/Savage Gear. I understand why and I myself remain highly suspicious of a lot of internet “advice”. What will be will be, but it would be a real shame here - because these two rods are quite possibly THE best “budget” lure rods I can recall fishing with. Only my opinion of course, but I know that a lot of anglers would get a hell of a lot of pleasure from fishing with these amazing lure rods…………..
And if I hadn’t quite literally stumbled across these Savage Gear Tactical Medium Game rods I don’t think I’d have ever known about them. I was on the Savage Gear stand ready for the start of The Big One Show at the end of February when I noticed a small rack of all-black lure rods sitting there. I wasn’t involved with the setup of the stand so I was not aware of what non-bass fishing tackle would be on display, plus I am not usually kept in the loop with products that are not deemed necessary for the (sea) bass fishing world. Because I am interested in fishing rods though I picked up a few of these all-black lure rods, had a few waggles, and immediately thought wow, these feel interesting. I had a look at the price tags on the rods and got hold of one of the Savage Gear freshwater guys on the stand to ask a bit more about these rods.
I found out that they were designed for the freshwater market, but the actions and grips and so on felt at the very least worth a look for my world as such. We did the show, it went awesome, and when I got home I sent an email to some contacts at Savage Gear to ask if I could please see these two rods for a bit of a play. Sometimes things happen fast and sometimes they don’t. It took me more than six weeks to get hold of these two rods, including a message from one of the grownups asking me why I was asking to see a couple of freshwater rods. Because I’m bloody interested in them, that’s why! If I hadn’t asked to see the Savage Gear Slender Scoop Shads I still don’t think that anybody would have ever sent me some to see what I thought for example, but I always believe that part of my job is to keep my eyes and ears open.
For ease of typing and reading, I am going to refer to this Savage Gear Tactical Medium Game 8'3'' 7-25g (2.51m) as the 8’3’’ 7-25g and the Savage Gear Tactical Medium Game 8'10'' 10-30g (2.69m) as the 8’10’’ 10-30g.
Let’s start with the 8’10’’ 10-30g rod then. Bloody hell this thing is impressive, but it took a couple of sessions until the rod really began to open up to me. You know how much I like the (heavier) Penn Authority 2500 spinning reel, because that was the first reel I strapped to this rod when I took it fishing. The rod felt good, but it didn’t quite feel like I remembered when I waggled it at The Big One Show. I liked it, but something wasn’t quite right. It does all the lures and techniques I’d expect an 8’10’’ long rod rated at 10-30g to do, and it felt pretty good on that first session - but I was sure there was more to it.
I don’t remotely worry about slightly heavier spinning reels for some of my bass fishing, but sometimes the combination of a specific rod plus (heavier) spinning reel doesn’t quite gel. I got home from fishing, washed the rod and reel down, and had a bit of a think. Next time I went fishing with this 8’10’’ 10-30g rod, I put a lighter Shimano spinning reel on and suddenly the whole thing felt completely different. Now the rod has come alive in my hands and it feels way more than the price suggests. Fast and light, but not like a poker which means that it’s an absolute dream to cast over and over again. Within five minutes of fishing this 8’10’’ 10-30g and the (lighter) Shimano spinning reel combination and I have forgotten that we are talking about a “budget” lure rod. Believe me or don’t believe me, but it’s bloody phenomenal.
So then I try to trip the rod up to see if I can find a weakness. I can overload the rod and bang the 35g Surf Seeker on it, but I can feel the butt section struggling to keep up. Kind of expected and perfectly fair with a 30g rod banging a 35g lure, so now I drop down to the 30g Surf Seeker and I can happily hit this metal as hard as I can and the rod is really singing. The regular Xorus Patchinko absolutely flies, and working this surface lure at range with the rod tip up is very good. I can fish happily with a much lighter surface lure such as the 9cm/11g Savage Gear Pop Walker 2.0, but now cast the heavier 12.5cm/20g Savage Gear Slap Walker and in the cast the rod is naturally performing better. Working surface lures with the tip on this 8’10’’ 10-30g is fantastic.
I really enjoy using soft plastics on this 8’10’’ 10-30g, and especially when I am casting something like the Savage Gear Gravity Stick Paddletail either on the regular 6/0 corkscrew weedless hook, or the one with a 3g belly-weight. I can efficiently swim or bump the bottom with the smaller size 11.5cm/22g Savage Gear Sandeel V2 Weedless, and I can also do with the larger 13cm/33g version. Again though, be it on your head if you deliberately overload this rod and come a cropper.
I really like the grips on both these rods, and I am just fine with the SeaGuide CCS stainless steel guide eyes with SiC rings. I wash any lure rod I use with freshwater after every fishing session so I don’t tend to worry much about rust on components. The only niggle I have about this 8’10’’ 10-30g rod especially is the handle length. I can easily live with it, but I wish it was a bit shorter. It’s not so long it bugs the hell out of me, but I tend to find myself casting this rod with my hand at least at the top of the butt grip. I would love to see this exact blank with a handle length exactly the same as on the 9’ SG4 Defiance and SG8 Defiance lure rods from Savage Gear. This Savage Gear Tactical Medium Game 8’10’’ 10-30g is already the best “cover potentially all of our lure fishing for bass” cheaper lure rod I have fished with, but shorten that handle length a smidgen and I reckon we’re into some seriously rarified air. I also accept that rod handle lengths are personal things.
How about the shorter and lighter Savage Gear Tactical Medium Game 8'3'' 7-25g lure rod then? You can probably guess that when I saw this rod in the rack at The Big One Show I thought hello, what are you like for the lighter estuary and creature bait stuff? What can I expect to find with a rod like this that costs a good bit less than the sort of lure rods I tend to fish with? (Because I am a hopeless tackle tart).
For the price of this 8’3’’ 7-25g rod, it feels a good bit more than I would expect for a lighter class of lure rod especially, because building in the kind of responsiveness, subtlety and feel we want with a much cheaper blank is not easy. Only a few years ago I’d expect to find more of a floppy stick of rhubarb in a budget lighter lure rod, but I’m not getting any of that here. This is a proper, lighter lure fishing rod. Okay, so you’ve got the cheaper guides and reelseat, but as per the 8’10’’, I am fine with that if I am getting more blank and less fixtures and fittings for my money.
It’s a rod for lighter lures so I am rigging it up with a 2500 or C3000 size Shimano spinning reel. Let’s go fishing with this rod, which for me is obviously going to be the creature bait and/or lighter estuary, or calmer open coast work especially. Flinging a DoLive Stick around or working some of the smaller surface lures is lovely on this rod, and I can easily step up to a 23g Savage Gear Seeker and cover a huge amount of ground if required. I can also push the (slightly overweight for this rod) Xorus Patchinko surface lure on it, but you can quite understandably feel it straining somewhat through the mid-section and into the butt when you wind it up. This rod is definitely happier when I drop down a bit and fish the slightly lighter 12.5cm/20g Savage Gear Slap Walker which I find so successful for the bass. I’m going to suggest that if you want to fire the regular Patchinko out there all day or night long, you’d have gone with the 8’10’’ 10-30g or something similar anyway.
So we’re doing the lighter stuff pretty effectively on this rod. The tip is surprisingly subtle for the price, and a bit more of it bends into the rest of the rod than you would find on a specifically fast action rod - as indeed a lighter lure rod should arguably behave. There ain’t much point shelling out for a lighter class of lure rod if you cannot effectively fish with lighter lures because the thing’s so bloody stiff! What interests me so much these days is how a rod like this deals with bumping creature baits and so on along the bottom in mainly shallow water at medium to close range.
I don’t really subscribe to a way more expensive lure rod quite simply giving me more feel because I think there is so much crap talked about this - too many factors influence how much you can feel to make it only about the price of the rod in my opinion - and when I am working something like a 7g cheb-rigged Nikko Craw 3.2’’ creature bait around on this rod, it feels really good to me. I haven’t got quite that same feeling of “sharp precision” that I find on the Favorite Skyline ‘25 862ML 8'6'' 5-18g (review here) or the outrageously good Favorite Black Swan 852M 8'5'' 6-24g (review here), but that’s to be expected. If anybody was to contact me right now to ask about a lighter lure rod which didn’t cost too much but which would give them a proper experience with the creature bait stuff etc., then I would have no hesitation in recommending this fantastic this Savage Gear Tactical Medium Game 8'3'' 7-25g lure rod.
Chalk me down as officially blown away by both these rods, and yes, of course I am particularly pleased that they are Savage Gear rods. Even if I had exactly nothing to do with them and I only stumbled across them by mistake - which is the case here! I think the 8’10’’ 10-30g rod here is overall the more impressive if I had to rate them against each other, but I do love how way less than £100 gives an angler a proper way into the lighter side of lure fishing with the 8’3’’ 7-25g rod. You can of course quite happily do the lighter stuff with the 8’10’’ 10-30g I might add. You all have a good weekend…………….
Disclosure - If you buy anything using links found around my website, I may make a commission. It doesn’t cost you anymore to buy via these affiliate links - and please feel entirely free not to do so of course - but it will help me to continue producing content. Thank you.