Background & Impressions: Daiko was once King in Japan supplying, their much sought after, high tensile strength blanks to many well known rod companies including Evergreen and Palms. Today, all that has changed. Market insiders tell us that while their rods are still assembled in Japan, Daiko no longer rolls their own blanks, and their popularity has waned considerably. The last of their original blank rods are supposedly those produced during the era of the Karisma and Cobretty lines. Lines, that for whatever reason, just did not warrant much success in the Japanese Market, hence the beginning of their slide from popularity. When our Burroughs BRSC68M arrived, we were expecting the worst, but what we held in hand after unwrapping the package was a very well made, modestly detailed, incredibly well balanced and comfortable in-hand fishing wand. Our first impression? A more sophisticated version of our St. Croix EC68MXF.

Introducing the Daiko Burroughs BRSC68M

Lab Tests: So striking were the similarities between these two sticks, we immediately strapped both to our RoD WRACK to make some semi-scientific comparisons. As mentioned previously, since first debuting our RoD testing methodology in our February 8th article on the Kistler MgAPSMH66, we've discovered that taking measurements across a broader range of loads can give us a better understanding of a particular rod's deflection characteristics. This has really helped our goal of identifying sticks similar to the one's we're writing about so that you can go to a store close to you and help alleviate some of the difficulties of buying a rod sight unseen.

Rate of Deflection (RoD): Our initial impressions did not disappoint. The Daiko Burroughs BRSC68M is almost an exact clone of the St. Croix EC68MXF in terms of their deflection characteristics. The chart below really illustrates this fact. If it weren't for the fact our St. Croix had a noticeably faster taper than our Daiko test rod, we'd have postulated that perhaps Daiko, in their new found business model of outsourcing, was getting their new blanks from St. Croix. For now, all we can say for certain, is that these two sticks do feel somewhat similar.

Fig. 1 : This RoD Deflection Chart shows the deflection characteristics of our Daiko BRSC68M (yellow curve) up against that of our St. Croix EC68MXF (blue curve). The two sticks are strikingly similar

The BRSC68M features a dark brown blank with gold lettering

A close-up of the Fuji Ti framed SiC guide and wrap on our BRSC68M

Spine, Weight, and Balance Point: The spine of our BRSC68M came out on bottom and its balance point at about five inches up the rod from the center of the reel seat with no reel mounted on the rod. It is an extremely well balanced rod weighing in at a total of 5.2 ounces. It is conventionally wrapped, and in our tests, we witnessed the line coming in contact with the blank at the top portion of the rod with about ten (10) ounces of pressure at the end of the line. Though our St. Croix EC68MXF is lighter on the scale, in hand, thanks to the balance of our BRSC68M, they feel almost identical in weight.

Real World Test: In the interest of color coordination, I immediately knew which reel I wanted to mount on this stick the second I had it in hand. One of my Conquest 51 reels tuned with a Conquest 201 handle and ABEC 7 stainless steel bearings. Carrying the coordination a bit further, I spooled 100yds of Sunline MachineGun Cast onto my Conquest 51 and voila!

Our Daiko Burroughs BRSC68M matched with a supertuned Conquest 51 sporting Sunline MachineGun Cast line

Pitching and Casting: It was hard to concentrate on the exact aspects of this particular performance point on this stick. Why? Because it felt like we've fished it before. The similarities between this stick and the St. Croix EC68MXF continue into the casting and pitching arena - especially when matched with a supertuned Conquest 51. The smile factor was huge with this setup. I did run the rod through some barage of casting weights throwing small, Megabass Baby Griffons (rated at 3/16 oz) and other baits up to the 5/8 oz size TD Vibration. The rod handled all these lures just fine and accuracy was very good. In fact, thanks to its slightly slower taper, this rod probably casts slightly easier than the St. Croix EC68MXF.

The BRSC68M features an elegantly painted reel seat

A reel seat this elegant deserves another look

Sensitivity: The vibration of all our various cranks were easily felt through the length of this rod despite its conventional foregrip design and rather unconventional (by today's standards) non-exposed blank reel seat. In fact, of particular note with this rod was the sensitivity it afforded me when playing around with a 3/8 ounce test plug in our parking lot. As I retrieved the test plug over the asphalt surface, I could actually feel each hop, skip and jump the test plug made along it's route back to where I was standing. I was astounded. I tried this with a few other rods including the St. Croix EC68MXF, and the sensation was simply not the same. Where ever Daiko is sourcing their blanks, it seems the standards they set forth previous to their outsourcing of this vital component still holds true. This is one very sensitive blank!

Color matched counterweights help balance out this stick

The obligatory stamp of a Japanese Domestic Market rod