By Matt Lynch

If a couple months ago you had asked me about Okuma’s Battle Cat line of cat fishing rods I’d have scratched my head. However recently while discussing the need to update my catfish rod inventory with my good friend and licensed guide, Scott Manning owner of Tennessee River Monsters, he brought these rods to my attention.

Being partnered up with Okuma, he recently had the opportunity to check these rods out himself and for someone who spends well over one hundred days on the water putting clients on monster fish, he was very impressed and spoke favorably of them in our talks. After a bit more research on the different models in this line, Scott finally convinced me to purchase some of my own.

I’d like to share with you the opinion of this catman after some field time with the rods on the Tennessee River. After receiving my rods, I was quite impressed with the features and innovations of this lineup. The rod starts out with a very robust E-glass blank. Those of us that have been around cat fishing for a long time know that E-glass rods have long been a standard due to their backbone and durability.

Available in 7’6″, 8′, and 10′ lengths I chose the 7’6″ so as to facilitate fitting in my rod racks in the house. The blank is factory rated for 1-8 oz. and 15-60 lb. line, which is standard across all the models of Battle Cat. Okuma included a very thoughtful fluorescent orange wrap just below the tip to aid in low light visibility along with double footed stainless guides for maximum life and durability. No cracked ceramic guides to be found on the Okuma Battle Cat series!

Now for things to get interesting, they made this a two piece rod, but not in the traditional flavor. It uses a butted-in-handle setup meaning the blank slides into the fore grip instead of the middle of the rod blank itself. Once together, you’ll never know it is a two piece rod by look or feel. Now here is where the Battle Cat really stole my heart. They provided not only a sizable 14″ cork rear grip with fighting gimbals, but also a 6″ EVA foam fore grip with cork composite caps to protect it. It not only looks great but the EVA foam makes it much easier when fighting a big catfish and less prone to slip than cork. Finally they provided a beefy graphite pipe reel seat topped off with an anodized knurled lock ring to make sure that your reel doesn’t work loose. It also threads forward making sure when your rod is loaded up with a big cat there isn’t any undue stress on the reel seat or its locking mechanism.

So how does it do in action, you ask? It does great! One of the great aspects of this rod is with its taper and heavy power blank, it is a ton of fun fighting smaller sub-30 lb. catfish which many big heavy catfish rods fail to do. Many are so beefy that when hooked up to a frisky 20lber it don’t feel like much more of a fight than your bait. But rest assured, the Battle Cat doesn’t let you down for this. But the beauty is, while it offers that level of satisfaction on smaller fish, when loaded up on a large fish in the 40 lb. range and up, such as those we encountered on our last outing on the Tennessee River (where we boated over 420 lbs. of catfish, many on the Battle Cat series) you see this rod’s true potential. It transforms into a brutal leviathan ready to stop a big behemoth catfish in its tracks! The rods tenacious backbone delivers the angler unwavering confidence that he can conquer any whiskered fish in freshwater. It does this while offering enough subtlety to provide excellent results with circle style hooks in its tip flex. I found the fore grip to be incredibly comfortable and is the perfect balance of materials for optimum function. The aforementioned reel seat with lock ring was a pleasure to have, because I never once had to check my reel to make sure it was properly secured. Once you snug up the lock ring, it is there to stay until you decide otherwise. As for the two piece design, I likely will never take mine apart but it is an incredibly snug fit. Almost to the point of frustration if you ever need to separate the two halves but you need not worry about it coming apart at a bad time. It is such a snug fit, when putting them together, especially long term, I would even recommend sticking the male end in some ice for a little while prior to putting the two pieces together. Although not necessary the oversize fighting gimbals is a nice touch to the rod and I love the fluorescent orange wrap on the tip. Combined with the white blank, these rods were very easy to keep an eye on in the dark.

There isn’t much I can add without repetition to this review but if you are in the market for a new catfish rod or dozen, please check these rods out. I’m glad I did!

Matt Lynch

Online Contributor

Residing in the Appalachian foothills in eastern Tennessee, Matt Lynch has a variety of fishing opportunities available. A diehard catman from the start his roots always go back to catfishing the region, which is well known for its multiple world record catfish over the years. Scouring everything to flooded backwaters to the mighty Tennessee River in his jet he is always looking for opportunity. Also an avid muskie angler, he certainly takes good advantage of the states offerings of trophy muskie and spends most of his time fishing on Melton Hill Lake where upper 40-50in. muskie aren’t all that uncommon. He also enjoys the occasional foray for tailwater trout that the region is famous for and bowfishing. More importantly than anything he believes in helping maintain good working relationships between the TWRA and groups/individuals for maintaining and improving our fish habitat and also participates in Trout Unlimited.