{"id":3341,"date":"2014-07-22T06:00:57","date_gmt":"2014-07-22T10:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/?p=3341"},"modified":"2014-07-22T08:53:24","modified_gmt":"2014-07-22T12:53:24","slug":"winston-debuts-made-in-america-nexus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/2014\/07\/22\/winston-debuts-made-in-america-nexus\/","title":{"rendered":"Winston Debuts Made-in-America Nexus"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"unnamed\"<\/a>Winston’s chief rod designer\/VP of Operations Annette McLean and the company’s owner David Ondaatje collaborated on a new rod which was announced at IFTD. \u00a0They also made a series of positive moves for the company. \u00a0First and foremost, the Asian experiment is over. \u00a0Winston has gone back to its roots with all-Montana made rods. \u00a0This of course leaves a gap at the lower end of their pricing spectrum, hence the new “Nexus.”<\/p>\n

I threw the nine foot five weight (pictured above) and was very favorably impressed. \u00a0This rod has all the classic Winston accoutrements, including a hand-written label, but it is painted a glossy black. \u00a0Indoors the difference wasn’t overly noticeable but I expect the rod to look extremely hi def outside.<\/p>\n

Casting-wise, I think this is a very strong design. \u00a0I’ve always liked Winston’s rods, especially the faster versions of their classic designs. \u00a0This one strongly reminded me of the late 1990s era LTX, a fast-action progressive taper which was a contemporary of the Sage XP. \u00a0I maxed a couple casts out just to see if the rod collapsed and it did not; this stick has plenty of bottom for all practical fishing situations including bank banging with streamers.<\/p>\n

At $475 but entirely made in America with a classic Winston look, I really expect the Nexus to be a strong seller. \u00a0This is an interesting space right now. \u00a0Mid-market rods have largely returned to the United States as Asian production costs have increased and Asian-made rods have proliferated. \u00a0In an effort to separate themselves from the pack, manufacturers like\u00a0Winston have allocated some of their American production back to the sub-$500 class of rods. \u00a0In these\u00a0cases we get nice American touches like hand scribing and US-manufactured (non-cloned) blanks, but costs are cut on things like grip cork, reel seats, and rod tubes. \u00a0 I like this space. \u00a0The cork on the Nexus a is still excellent and the reel seats simply look like the standard ones from ten years ago.<\/p>\n

Be sure to test-cast this rod if you’re considering even a high end rod purchase in the next year.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Winston’s chief rod designer\/VP of Operations Annette McLean and the company’s owner David Ondaatje collaborated on a new rod which was announced at IFTD. \u00a0They also made a series of positive moves for the company. \u00a0First and foremost, the Asian experiment is over. \u00a0Winston has gone back to its roots …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3342,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gear-reviews","column","onecol","has-thumbnail"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/files\/2014\/07\/unnamed.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3341"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3345,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3341\/revisions\/3345"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}