Impressions: Trey Kistler is among the most devoted manufacturers in the industry, and is constantly on the lookout for exciting new blank materials, never shying away from the opportunity to employ new design concepts into his rods. When I first took a look at the Crank Bait Composite, from Kistler's new Graphite Plus Series, the first thing that came to mind was...the Helium LTA. The Crankbait Composite has the same innovative motif, but makes use of yet another new-found blank material.

Kistler's rods are very application specific, with each rod built to excel at a particular technique. Glass rods have remained popular among old school anglers that prefer the soft gentle action only afforded by fiberglass. The downside is that fiberglass is heavy and tiring to cast all day, and not nearly as accurate or sensitive as pure graphite. Kistler searched all over the U.S. for a blank material that could produce the authentic action of a glass rod, but still offer the refinement of high modulus graphite.

Materials: Kistler's Graphite Plus rods exploit a mixture of graphite and fiberglass in the composite construction. This is not just a fiberglass core, finished with a graphite wrap. In contrast, the Graphite Plus is actually a 42 million modulus graphite rod infused with fiberglass throughout the entire blank! This gives the rod blank a very unique "woven" look, which really must be seen in person to fully appreciate. The final result is a very lightweight rod that feels and reacts like a pure graphite rod, but has the soft tip feel that glass anglers demand from their traditional crankbait rods. The material looks similar to the Helium LTA blanks, but is slightly heavier and feels more full-bodied when whipped back and forth.
 

Real World Test: As with the introduction of the Helium, Trey told us as much as he could about the unique new blank stating that this new blank "combines new technology with old school knowledge to create what I think is a above average blank." We were eager to put the new Crankbait Composite to the test, and fished a number of local Bass lakes, running every size, shape, and action crank we could muster.

Casting/Retrieving: Our test rod was the new 7' model Crankbait Composite rod (KCBCM7). Most of the time when I fish crankbaits I prefer rod sizes of 6'6" or 7', simply because these sizes give you the ability to cast a significant distance. Because crankbaits are great fish finding lures, the ability to cast a good distance is a key attribute to a superior crankbait rod. In this category the Kistler Crankbait Composite did not dissatisfy. The rod has a very soft tip thanks to its dual makeup, and can cast even lighter cranks with a nice soft whip. With a gentle sweeping motion or the flick of your wrist you can toss crankbaits with no difficulty. One of the things I liked best about the rod was the ability to whale bigger cranks thanks to the graphite backbone, or lightly lob tiny ones right in front of structure. I have fished other rods that excel at one or the other, but few that are so multi-talented.

When retrieving the soft tip allows you to bring cranks to life, and is excellent for subtle jerk techniques, or even walking surface baits back in a nice back and forth motion. Anglers will find that they have a lot of freedom when it comes to applying different types of retrieves with this rod. Tug lightly and the soft tip will advance cranks in a arc motion, pull hard, and the stiff butt of the rod kicks in causing your cranks to lurch forward. Overall the rod feels more flexible than normal graphite rods, but never feels sloppy. If I had to pick which type of material the rod feels more like I would still lean towards a pure graphite rod.