Fox Jig Trek XT - 4pc Travel Rod

For too long the travelling angler has had to suffer the hassle of getting rods from home to the fishing destination. Long, cumbersome and somewhat heavy tubes, special check-in procedures, pick up from oversize baggage and the associated wasted time that goes with it. Fly fisherman have been blessed with rods that pack down to go inside standard luggage for years and certainly companies like Nitro have had the lighter end of the market covered for several years now also. What of the mid to heavy tackle fisherman? Those that want to troll for Marlin, Jig for Samson fish or throw poppers along a reef edge? They have been forgotten for too long…….until now!

Not a bad effort for a 4 piece rod! 

For just over a year now we have been stocking the Fox Trek range of travel rods and have had nothing but rave reviews from anybody that has put them to the test. Recently I embarked on a deepwater jigging trip out of Fremantle, WA and chose to use the Fox Jig Trek XT.

Fox Jig Trek XT

6ft long

4 piece

Travel Length 55cm

500-700gr jig weight

80lb Line Rating

Hard Zippered Travel Case

Aluminum Gimbal

Contoured Fore Grip

I must admit to being just a little sceptical of this rod being able to cope with the immense pressure that rods are put under when jigging for Samson fish in the west. Large jigs, deep water, heavy lines, heavy drags and big tough fish that fight hard and dirty have seen many rods break over the many trips that I have done there. The only way to know how good a product performs is to take it fishing and push it hard.

The Jig Trek XT is the heaviest jigging rod in the Fox range. Rated for lines up to 80lb and jigs from 500 – 700grams the specs suggest it would be perfect for the deepwater jigging that we would be doing. Over several days I used a range of jigs from 300 – 600gram. While the lighter of these were below the recommendation of the manufacturer it still handled it fine and allowed enough feel and flex in the tip to give extra action to the jig. While the 600gram jig was hard work the rod handled it well and in reality it would have been hard work on any rod.

The rod handled the fight of quite large fish far better than I was expecting and I didn’t feel anxious about the fact the rod was 4 piece at any point. Through several hook-ups I fought and lost big fish. Not the fault of the rod (and my ego would say not the angler) as we were losing lots of big tough fish this trip.

While I didn’t get big numbers of fish on the rod I did have two fish beaten. One I dropped mid way to the boat and the other, a fish of around 27kg was landed.

Check out this youtube clip to see the rod in action