Glenn: Hey folks, Glenn May here with BassResource.com, and I'm here at the 2015 ICAST Show, here at the Okuma booth, checking out some of the brand new rods here with John. John, what do you got for us?
John: Well, what we have here, is we have an extension to one of our top-selling lines, a Helios Series bass rods. This is our highest in bass series, starting out at 3.5 ounces, so extremely lightweight. It's a 40-ton carbon configuration, so very fast, very responsive. And what we've done is we've complemented it with a split butt EVA configuration and you'll see there's zero fore-grip. So working in with that 40-ton carbon, it's really lightweight so you can really fish all day long.
Then you also have a screwed on Fuji reel seat with that split reel seat configuration. So what's new this year is that in the past, all the rods were either casting micro guides or spinning micro guide concept. So some of the guys really liked it because of the sensitivity factor, but in cold weather it's not a great versatile rod because you could have icing and some guys just don't like the micro guide concept.
Glenn: Plus a lot of guys like to use leaders, for example, and it doesn't work very well with a micro guide.
John: Exactly. The leader doesn't wanna travel through the guides. So what we've done is we've taken our bestselling rod blanks within that series and we've added traditional guide sizing. So we're not dropping the mini guides, we're just adding to it. So you got good extension with several six-foot six, seven-foot rods, with that traditional ALPS guide sizing. And all these rods are gonna have zirconium inserts. So it's gonna be a real nice way to enhance the Helios Series. So a guy that likes fishing the current rods, the Helios, can add more to their boat and have for all-around fishing conditions.
Glenn: So now you can have either the micro guides or traditional?
John: Exactly.
Glenn: Now what is this gonna retail for?
John: Depending on the model, it's gonna be between $169 and $179 and the new models are gonna be out right around October time frame.
Glenn: Fantastic. Guys, you gotta check this out when it comes out near you. The new Helios rods, both micro guides and the standard guides, exactly what you want.