Speaker A
I bought a bunch of cheap fishing rods from Temu, [music] and in this video, I'm going to be testing them out and letting you know if they're secretly good or if they're a complete waste of money. And these are the three rods
A fishing creator tests three cheap Temu rods: an $8 plastic telescopic rod, a $15 carbon ultra-light, and a ~$23 carbon rod. Verdict: the $8 rod is poor, the others are much better.
Key Takeaways
- The $8 plastic telescopic rod is poorly built and not recommended.
- The $15 carbon ultra-light rod is sensitive and fun for light lure fishing but flimsy and hard to cast.
- The ~$23 carbon rod offers the best value, with good build quality, sensitivity, and casting.
- Cheap Temu rods can catch fish, but build quality varies widely with price.
What the video covers
- The creator bought three fishing rods from Temu and tests whether they are secretly good or a waste of money.
- The $8 blue telescopic rod is made entirely of plastic, smells of chemicals, is very stiff with no action, and has glued-on-looking guides.
- Despite its flaws, the $8 telescopic rod still landed a perch using a spinner, though bites were hard to feel.
- The creator does not recommend the $8 telescopic rod and suggests a $20 Kmart rod instead.
- The $15 ultra-light rod is a two-piece carbon fiber rod with a cork handle, a bait keeper, and nicer guides.
- The $15 rod is very sensitive but flimsy, making it hard to cast and to set hooks, especially with a 1 g jig head.
- On the ultra-light rod the creator caught several small perch, showing it is fun on light gear despite missed hookups.
- The third rod (~$23) is carbon fiber with foam handles and metal components, and the creator says it feels well built.
- The $23 rod casts a 1 g soft bait well and handles a 6 g lure, and it landed the biggest fish of the session.
- The creator plans to keep using the better rods and promises further updates, with purchase links in the description.
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
here. Now, I think that this one is probably the best and probably my favorite, so I'm going to leave that till last. And then I'm going to start off with the cheapest and probably the worst, this blue little telescopic rod here. Now,
Speaker A
this rod cost me $8 here, and I bought it to be more like a travel rod.
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And I think it's important to know that all the reels I'm using in this video didn't come with the rods, and they're just reels I've had lying around. Now, the first thing that I've noticed is that this thing is just completely made
Speaker A
of plastic, and it smells like straight chemicals. Yeah, so that's not really a good thing.
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It's also super stiff. I don't know if you're able to tell, but it has no action on it. I don't think I'm going to be able to feel bites or anything on this thing.
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And yeah, this thing just looks pretty ugly. It feels really cheap. And it's probably going to snap I think if I hook a big fish or something.
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This whole thing here is just made of plastic, like the handle, everything. It's also pretty heavy. Like, I've taken the reel off, and it still feels like a surf caster or something. Not quite that, you know what I mean.
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The guides also look pretty cheap. I don't know if you can tell, but they look like they're just glued on there.
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But yeah, overall, first impressions aren't great. I mean, it was only $8, though, so I mean, could be worse.
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But yeah, we're going to see if we can catch a fish on this thing. Telescopic rods normally aren't as strong as generic rods anyway. I mean, this one's made of plastic, so I doubt this thing's going to hold up very well
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in the long run, but there's only one way to find out. Telescopic rod here.
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Let's going to give it a cast and see how it does. Actually doesn't cast too bad. Although, I do have pretty thin braid on here, which is probably why, but it didn't cast too bad. [music] Pretty smooth. Cast pretty far. Now, I'm just
Speaker A
going to fish around for a bit and see if we can catch a fish on it.
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It's going to be pretty hard to know if we get a bite or something cuz this rod is not very sensitive.
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Yeah, like I was saying, this rod's made out of plastic, so we should have we should hopefully be able to catch fish on it today, but I'm not sure how long it's going to last in the future cuz the build quality on it isn't great.
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That might have been a hit there. I'm not sure. It's pretty hard to tell if that was a rock or if that was a fish.
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All right, guys. I think I just found a school of perch. I'm just going to bring my spinner right over there.
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Oh, yeah. Hit. Got one. Let's go, guys. Look at that. Just saw a school of perch and we just cast the spinner out and we got one. It was pretty hard to tell that I had a fish on.
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Don't want to get a treble in my hand here. There we are. Nice little perch there on the $8 telescopic rod.
Speaker A
Nice. Chuck him back. All right, guys. I just landed the first fish on the telescopic rod there. It was a nice little perch. Not super big, but I couldn't really tell that I had a fish on there. Like I said before, the rod's
Speaker A
just super stiff, which isn't great when you're lure fishing. But anyway, we managed to catch a fish on it. We're going to keep fishing for a bit and see if we can catch fish on the other rods.
Speaker A
Right. Now, do I recommend the $8 telescopic rod? I have to say no. I mean, the thing is only $8, but it's just built pretty badly.
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It's not sensitive at all. It's super like thick and stuff down the end here.
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It's just not built very well and I thought you'd be better off just buying a $20 rod from Kmart or something. I was able to catch fish with it. I mean, it did make it pretty difficult. It didn't
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cast too bad, but I felt that was mostly because of the braid and stuff on the reel. I will need to test this thing out with with a cheaper reel and some mono or something.
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But yeah, I would not recommend the $8 telescopic rod. All right, now onto the next rod which came in this nice little case. And this was just an ultra-light rod that I bought.
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Pretty good. The rod is there. And it's a two-piece. And this one cost me $15.
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And the actual rod is made of carbon fiber which is pretty nice. Now you can see this one already looks better. It's got a cork handle.
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It feels a lot nicer. The rod's made of better material. Well, the handle and stuff here is still made of plastic, but better plastic than what the other telescopic rod is made from. See, it's got a bait keeper here which is nice for
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like lures and hooks and stuff. Now something that I've noticed from holding it is that it's super flimsy.
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Like this thing just bends a crazy amount. Which I mean, it is an ultra-light rod, but I mean even at the handle here, like that bends. Like that's going to make casting pretty hard, I reckon. And I don't know how
Speaker A
strong it's going to be if we hook a big fish. Yeah, overall, I mean, for $15 it's not too bad by the looks of things. Yeah, this rod's a lot lighter than the other one. The guides and stuff are nicer.
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Yeah, this will be interesting just This will be interesting to see if we can catch a fish on it.
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All right, guys. So now I've just got the $15 ultra-light rod here. Now this thing has the opposite problem as that telescopic rod there. It's way too flimsy.
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But also, it might make it hard to cast. And I've just got a little soft bait on the end there with a little 1-gram jig head. I'm just going to give this a go.
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I didn't cut the tag end off cuz it probably doesn't matter. Yeah, I'm just going to cast in the exact same spot cuz I'm pretty sure there's a school of perch there. Woah.
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That thing is weird to cast. It's so flimsy. Oh, oh, we had a hit.
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This thing is so hard to cast. But, it doesn't can't cast a 1-g jig head far enough.
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Oh, oh, I had another hit. I think these fish might just be small. It's super, super sensitive.
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But, also super, super hard to cast. It would make it easier if I had a bit of a like a jig head on, but I'm just rocking a little 1 g. I just want to test it out to see how well it
Speaker A
casts. Oh, hit. Yep. Ah, missed him. Now, cuz this rod is so flimsy, it's pretty hard to set my hook as well.
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Cuz I don't want to pull too hard cuz I'll pull the hook out of the water.
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But, if you don't pull hard enough, then Oh. Oh. There's one. Ah, and he came off.
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Did you bite my tail off? Nope. Still good. What? What? But, this thing scares me, honestly, when I cast.
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Ah, I'd hate casting it with a heavier lure on. It'd probably snap. Come on. There was so many fish here just before.
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And they all sort of got spooked a bit. I'm just going to reel super slowly. Ah.
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Man, this thing is hard to cast. There, that's better. I'm just going to reel that in super slowly.
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Oh hits. Yep, got one on. Look at that on the little ultra light. Oh, that is just a Oh, and he came off.
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That was a tiny fish. But it's still a lot of fun on this light gear. Casts. Yep, got one. Oh, and he came off again.
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Come on. Just need one fish. Yeah, throwing off the perches there. They hang out in schools lots of the time. So, if you can find a school of them, you can normally catch quite a few.
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But then they also leave together. So, you just need to find a group of them.
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Oh, ah. That was a hit. Yeah, there's still a few fish around. But just before I could just see schools of them up around the surface and stuff.
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Making ripples. I'll tell you what. This is only a 1 g jig head, which is extremely light, like way lighter than anything I'd normally use. And I mean, it's casting it far enough.
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Which is pretty impressive. Oh, yep, got one. Come on, stay on. Yes, look at that. Finally.
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An even smaller one than the one before, but it's still good on the rod. I just kind of horsed them in there just cuz I was really want to catch one, so I can change rods.
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But yeah, soft bait comes out. There we go, another little small perch. Still good fun on this light gear.
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Off he goes. Now, would I recommend a $15 ultra light? This one's close, but I have to say no. I mean, it's $15 and it was able to cast that 1 g jig head. It was also a lot of fun when I did hook a fish on it.
Speaker A
But as you saw, the casting was so sketchy. Like it just doesn't It's so flimsy. It was also so bad to keep the fish on the hook because it's so light and you know, it's I couldn't properly set the hook into the fish. But it is a
Speaker A
lot of fun. I will say that. But I feel like it's just not practical enough.
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With that being said, I would recommend it a lot more than the $8 telescopic rod. I mean, it's made of carbon fiber.
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It's got a cork handle on it. And it will It is super flimsy and although it does feel like it's going to break, I don't feel like it will, but it's just not worth that risk. It is a
Speaker A
lot of fun though. All right, now onto the third and final rod. I'm really excited to use this one. This was the most expensive, but it's only like $23, so not that much more expensive than the last.
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And look at that. This is another ultra-light rod. And this thing just looks so nice.
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Look at that. Another two-piece rod. This one is like the last. But that's mainly the build quality and the finish on this one is so much nicer.
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I mean, this one's super sensitive, but then it does stiffen out as you get lower down on the rod. Yeah, this one is again is made of carbon fiber. And if you look at the handles and stuff like
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this, this is all metal here, this orange stuff. And this is like a lot tougher plastic than the other rods.
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Super nice foam bits on the handle there. Yeah, like this is all metal. It just looks like a super nice rod. Yeah, it's also extremely light. Like it feels like I'm holding nothing.
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And then the guides on it look super nice as well. They look like proper guides.
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So, the lure rating on this is 0.8 to 5 g, which is extremely light. It's going to be fun if we can catch some fish on this. Yeah, like this looks like a rod that would cost like hundreds of
Speaker A
dollars. That This thing only cost like $23. It almost looks too good to be true, but we're going to find out, see how good this thing really is.
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All All right, now it's time for the $23 ultra light rod. This is one I'm most excited for. I mean, just look at that.
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That's such a nice looking rod there. I mean, it's got middle handles. The whole thing's made of carbon, the whole rod.
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It bends super well, but then it's not too flimsy. Yeah, I'm super excited to use this thing. I've just got the same little black 1 g soft bait there.
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We'll see how this casts. Oh, yeah. That casts so much nicer already. I went about the same distance, but it just doesn't feel like it's going to snap when you cast.
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I mean, if this thing can cast a little 1 g soft bait, I'm sure it can cast spinners and other heavier stuff a lot easier.
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Yeah, and this whole combo is like super light. Feels like you're holding nothing. And it's super thin as well.
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Hoping that it's going to be strong. I'm not sure. If we hook a big fish on it, we'll find out.
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But if you do But if you guys do want to see me take these rods out and try some try to catch some proper big fish with them, let me know cuz I'll be glad to do that.
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All right, it's been a bit quiet, so I think I'm going to move spots to see if we can find some more fish. So, I've just sort of changed spots to a shallower part of the lake.
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We'll see if there's any more fish around here. Oh, yep. There's a fish first cast. Look at that.
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Just a tiny one. There we go. First cast over here. Wow, that was fun on that little rod.
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Super small fish, but There you go. That is easily the smallest of the day, but still put up a fairly good fight on the little rod.
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Let's try and catch a few more fish with this thing, I reckon, cuz that was a lot of fun.
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Wow, we just caught that fish. Oh, there's another one. Second cast. Look at that. Look at the bend in that rod.
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This is another pretty small fish, I reckon. But, I can definitely feel it on this rod.
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Wow. Second cast, two fish in two casts. Another really small one, but still great fun on this super light gear.
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See if we can go three in three. Yep. There we are. Oh, he popped off.
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No. Yeah, I wonder how this rod will fare up against some big trout or something like that. Some kahawai taken out in the salt water. Who knows?
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Future video, maybe. Is that a fish? That feels a bit bigger if it is.
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Time to drag a bit. Oh. It's getting smaller actually as it comes in. Oh, yeah. Still probably the biggest one I've caught on this rod.
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I think he took it on the drop. They They're loving these little soft baits.
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Another little perch. All right. So, now I've just got this little spinner on the head before. This is more of what I'd use when I'm trout fishing and stuff. This one is a little bit heavy. This is like a 6 g one, I
Speaker A
think. So, that's about six times heavier than what we're using before. Let's see how this casts.
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Still casts super smoothly. I barely even have to check that. What does it say on here?
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Low weight, 0.8 to 5 g. And this is a 6 g lure, so. It's still casting it pretty well, though.
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Yeah, this is probably a little bit heavier than what I'd normally use. I'd probably use like a 5 g.
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But, oh, that's a rock. Look at that bend. It bends pretty nicely, nice and evenly along the rod.
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Now, I'm going to try to get something stuck there. There you go. Pretty super light, like a super [music] light.
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It just doesn't have as much power as Is that a fish? That might be a fish.
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Yeah, I think it's a fish. Oh, a rock. Something's on. Little perch. I'm surprised he could eat that spinner, to be honest. The hooks in there are pretty big.
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Another perch. Now, for the big question. Would I recommend the $23 ultralight rod? And honestly, I have to say yes. This thing was awesome. Normally, I don't like supporting cheap, you know, overseas stuff. I feel like it's better to
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support actual fishing brands, but but I mean, this thing has just been the absolute bomb. And you know, for people like me who live in New Zealand, it's pretty hard to find rods like this.
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And if you do, they're normally hundreds of dollars. [music] Yeah, this thing cost $23. And from what I've seen so far, I mean, it performs just as good as my higher-end rods. It's super fun when you're catching fish on
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it, but it's also practical. Like, this thing casts lures super easily. It's super smooth.
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And it it's just built really nice, you know? Like, nice foam handles. It's made of carbon fiber. It's got metal and tougher sort of plastic than the other rods.
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[music] It just seems like a really good rod to me, you know? Like, there's nothing wrong with it from what I've seen so far.
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[music] And it was super fun to use. You know, it's super sensitive, which is good when you're lure fishing, and especially for those small fish where sometimes you can't feel their bites very well. But, I mean, it's also has
Speaker A
enough like power to actually sit the hook and actually fight the fish properly, unlike the other $15 rod. So, yes, this rod I would definitely recommend if you're looking for something like this. I mean, it's only $23.
Speaker A
Now, I think it's important to note, and this does go for all the rods that I've reviewed in this video, this is my first time using them, so I've no idea how they're going to hold up long-term, but I'm definitely going
Speaker A
to keep using this rod. And I'll keep you guys updated. If you do want to buy any of these rods, I'll leave links to them in the video description. But, yeah, let me know if you guys want to see me keep using these
Speaker A
rods and even go out and try to catch some proper monster fish with them, cuz I'll be happy to do that. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you on the next one.
Topics:Temu fishing rodscheap fishing rodstelescopic rod reviewcarbon fiber rodultralight fishingperch fishingbudget fishing gearrod reviewspinner fishingfishing for beginners
