But a picture is worth a thousand words and Abu did approve our taking of these photographs so that we can share the inspiration of their pending new creation.

On Day 1 of ICAST, we met with Jim Coble of Pure Fishing who shared with us his personal goal of delivering fishing rods with Enthusiast grade appeal without the typical enthusiast grade price tag. "There's no reason a $500 rod needs to cost $500," is what Jim repeatedly stated. He was literally bursting at the seams wanting to show us his recent pet project, but an embargo on the information together with the unavailability of his prototype samples had prevented him this goal.

Berkeley went to the drawing board to develop their own in house version of a titanium framed, SiC guide and intends to debut them on this new rod.

That is, until Day 2. Jim tracked us down in the aisles of ICAST wanting to share some very exciting news, but it wasn't until Day 3 we were able to catch up with him. When we did, he immediately ushered us into the back room where he announced we'd be the very first people outside of his immediate Pure Fishing colleagues to see these prototypes and if you've gotten this far in the article, then you already know what he showed us and I'm sure all you want to know at this point is: 1) handle configuration, 2) guide material, 3) how much, and 4) when.

Abu Garcia is targeting a mid-year introduction of these rods right around the time of the 2010 Bassmaster's Classic. Can they do it?

Here are your answers: 1) How about a split rear grip with an infinite adjustment handle (expand and collapse the rear handle and stop it at any point between fully collapsed or fully extended) 2) Berkeley's own, titanium framed SiC guides, 3) $130, and 4) late spring or early summer 2010, hopefully in time for the Bassmaster's Classic.