I paid a visit to the United Composites factory Friday. WONDERFUL experience, very nice seeing Randy well settled into the new factory, things humming along well in terms of production, the staff working there are top notch as they should be given their experience background. THE BIG NEWS IS THAT FACTORY RODS ARE INDEED COMING!!! We will have the new rods in our inventory in about 2 weeks time. Some of the lightest weight rods I've ever handled, and very capable of taking large fish indeed. I think UC will reach their potential under Randy's stewardship, heck the right term is not "think" it's KNOW. I've seen the future, and it's bright, light and the best built stuff I've come across. Expect great things, and even more great things to come as time progresses. I will post pictures as things get closer to completion. The rods I saw were the first assembly, they had been wrapped, guides and handles installed, but finishing was not completed yet.

Great Stuff!
Mark
p.s. As to how well built these designs are, lets just say clearly DUAL HELIX IS THE BOMB! There's empirical proof of this, scientific design load measurements from an independent testing firm in the medical field confirmed this strength of design. Can't say more than that here, but feel free to stop by the shop for info.

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The new Factory Built rods are now at our Huntington Beach shop, and will be at our San Diego show this week ~ Wednesday is the plan. They are nothing short of what we expected - AMAZING, light and powerful rods. Seven and 8 foot models (with and without reel seats - yep, deckhand rods are here). For the shops, we'll also have the 9 and 10 foot rods in stock. Those are too darn expensive to ship, but for the long rod folks they will be very well received. Next up for production, Swimbait Finatic series 711's will be here in about 2 weeks time!!!

Mark, you were muttering a couple of weeks ago about a forthcoming rod that would be of great interest to East Coast tilefish anglers. Was that a UC or Rainshadow rod?

No rush, I'm not on a tilefish trip until June. I just don't want to miss anything.

UC 711XH is based upon their new TileFish blank (which is 8ft verses 7'11". Very light rods, but made with some power to handle larger, I mean LARGER size swimbaits...and weights used for targeting tilefish. The blank will have many other appropriate applications, some may use her for wahoo, but I have a feeling UC will develope something else for that to go along with their current Wahoo specific 8 footer.

Pardon my stepping on the thread, but is UC going to continue making all the blanks on the site?

And probably add to that range with some new models as time progresses and Randy moves forward. He still has more equipment to purchase, increasing ability to produce finished rods. We've seen some new blanks added, in some cases based upon existing designs, like the longer Viper rail rod, tilefish blank... They do have a huge range of rods in their catalog, but for UC a big part of that derives from export market needs.

Continue making the blanks in HB CA? Absolutely!!! Staying in California was important to Peter and Andrew Williams the Australian folks who brought GUSA back to life. It's even more important to Randy and his team. They ain't farming out blank building to anyone else. Why would they, that's what they've invested decades learning and perfecting. Seeker's new owner really blew it when he p/o'd Randy and the other guys. Didn't do too well with me either, but then again I was only 10% of their business, Randy was the heart and soul of Seeker and without him they simply are not a rod making firm, they are rod wrappers and not very good ones... I really do feel that UC is the future of SoCal rod building.

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What's the action like on these finatics, especially the 711L?

Also, are these built on the same blanks as the US 711s? The ratings seem a little different.

Randy can correct me if I'm off, but my understanding is that the 711 is only available in the UC form - dual helix, no 'glass, not in the US series. Sorry I missed the post, been working down at our San Diego shop a few more days each week over the past couple weeks.

Model Length Action Rating Pc Lure Weight Tip Butt
UC 711M 7’11” FAST 15-30 1 1-4 8.0 .725 $141.90
UC 711MH 7’11” MOD-FAST 15-40 1 2-5 8.0 .618 $152.40
UC 711H 7’11” MOD-FAST 30-40 1 3-6 8.0 .727 $159.50