PLUSINNO Telescopic Combo Review: A Collapsible Setup for Bank Fishing

The rod behind the seat of my truck for the last two months is a PLUSINNO telescopic combo, and I did not buy it expecting much. I am 58, retired out of HVAC work, and I live about fifteen minutes from Lake Norman in North Carolina. I have a sixteen foot aluminum jon boat I launch at the public ramp two or three mornings a week, and I have a wall rack in the garage full of rods I trust. What I did not have was a rod I could leave in the truck without feeling like an idiot. A seven foot one piece will not fit behind a seat. A two piece gets broken down and put back together every trip, and sooner or later you lose a tip section or knock a guide out of line. So I bought the PLUSINNO this fall to be the truck rod, and it has been fished enough now that I can tell you what it does.

Here is the short version. It is a real rod, not a toy, and it genuinely collapses into a case short enough to sit in a truck cab or a duffel bag without an argument. It is also a collapsible rod, and collapsible rods give something up. I will get to exactly what. I read the listing twice before I ordered it, and I have fished it from the bank at ponds and creeks, which is the job I bought it for.

How I've Used It

Two months is not a long time to know a rod, so I will not pretend otherwise. I have had it out maybe a dozen times since it showed up. Most of those were quick stops, the kind where I am coming back from the hardware store and pull off at a pond for forty minutes with one rod and a small box of plastics. A few were longer. I fished it from the bank on a creek that feeds the lake when the water was up after rain, and I walked a good half mile of bank with the case over my shoulder and never once thought about the rod.

That is the whole point of the thing, and it is worth saying plainly. When a rod breaks down into a case that short, you carry it the way you carry an umbrella. You do not plan around it. I walked through a stand of pines and along a fence line to get to a hole I like, and I did not have to hold a tip up and pick my way through. On the way back out I had it collapsed and back in the case in under a minute, standing next to the truck.

I have not had it on the boat, and I want to be straight about that. My jon boat has holders and a rack and I have rods I have fished for years, so the PLUSINNO stays in the truck for the walk in trips. If you fish from a boat every single time and never from the bank, that is a different conversation, and I say so further down.

What the Spec Sheet Says, and What That Means on the Bank

The rod is 1.8 meters, which the listing calls 5.91 feet. It is listed as medium heavy power with a 10 pound line rating. The blank is 24 ton carbon fiber reinforced with a fiberglass composite, which is an honest description of how a lot of rods are built: carbon for stiffness, glass so the thing can take a knock without splintering. Pure carbon at this level would be brittle. The mix is the right call for a rod that is going to ride in a truck.

The reel is an HA 3000 spinning reel with a CNC machine cut collapsible handle, and the handle swaps for left or right hand retrieve. The listing calls the hand orientation ambidextrous. Gear ratio is 5.2, which is a workhorse number, not a speed reel. Line capacity is listed at 0.20 mm for 240 meters, 0.25 mm for 200, and 0.30 mm for 140. The combo weighs in at 267 grams. I am not going to pretend I can feel the difference between 267 and 300 grams in my hand, but it is light enough that carrying it for an hour down a bank is a non event.

Two things the listing is clear about, and you should read both twice. First, no line comes with it. The reel ships bare, so you spool it yourself, and with a 10 pound rating on the rod I would put 10 pound monofilament on and not think hard about it. Second, no lures and no tackle come with it. It is a rod, a reel, and the case, and that is the whole box. If you are buying this for somebody who has nothing, add line and a few hooks to your list. It also carries a one year manufacturer warranty, which is worth knowing if a section ever goes bad on you.

Casting and Fishing With It

A 5.91 foot rod is a short rod, and short rods are not distance rods. From the bank I am usually casting to a likely spot thirty or forty feet out, and this one puts a quarter ounce Texas rig or a small spinnerbait there without me having to muscle it. When I try to reach a point at the far edge of a cove, I run out of rod before I run out of arm. That is physics, and no amount of technique fixes it.

Where the short length helps is accuracy in tight water. There is a creek mouth I fish where the trees come right down to the water on both sides, and the only cast that works is a low sidearm flip under a branch. A seven footer does not make that cast. This one does, because there is less rod to catch on things. I put a small jig in a slot between two laydowns three casts in a row and did not lose one of them.

The medium heavy rating is honest. There is enough backbone to set a hook through a plastic, and enough give that a twelve inch crappie does not feel like you are hauling a log. I have caught largemouth up to about two pounds on it and it handled those without anything dramatic, which is exactly what you want. I would not throw a big swimbait with it or flip heavy cover. That is not this rod's job.

The Reel, Two Months In

The 3000 size is the right size for this rod, and I have no complaints about the gearing. At 5.2 to 1, a slow rolled spinnerbait stays slow, and there is still enough speed to take up slack when a fish turns and runs at you. The collapsible handle is the part I expected to be a weak point, and it has not been. It folds flat against the body so the reel sits in the case without the handle sticking out, and the joint has not loosened up on me.

You spool it yourself, so spool it right. I put 10 pound mono on mine and left a little room under the lip. Overfill a spinning reel and you get loops and wind knots and you will blame the reel for it. Mine has thrown one loop in two months, and that was my fault for filling it too full the first time out.

I walked a half mile of creek bank with the case over my shoulder, collapsed the rod in under a minute at the truck, and drove home. That is the entire reason I bought it.

The one thing I will flag is that this is a package reel. It is not the KastKing Sharky I keep on my catfish rod, and it is not going to be. It turns, it retrieves line, the handle locks up tight, and after two months it is smooth. Whether it is smooth in three years I cannot tell you. Anybody who tells you otherwise after two months is guessing.

Where It Falls Short

Sensitivity is the first thing you give up. A one piece rod telegraphs a soft bite straight through the blank into your hand. A rod with joints in the middle of it does not, or at least not as well. Bottom contact fishing is where I notice it most, dragging a worm across a rocky point. I have had fish pick it up and sit there, and I did not know until I saw the line move sideways.

Second, joints collect grit. After a bank trip in the wind, sand works into the ferrules and you can feel it when you extend the sections. I wipe mine down with a rag, it takes twenty seconds, and it matters, because grit in a joint is how a telescopic rod goes sloppy early. Third, the whole idea of the rod is also its weakness. A rod that comes apart into sections is a rod with several chances to be assembled wrong. If a section is not seated all the way, it will rattle, and then it will work loose on a cast.

Who This Is For

This is for the person whose fishing happens in the gaps. You drive past a pond on the way home. You keep a small box of plastics in the console. You want a rod in the truck that you do not have to plan around, one that goes in a duffel for a weekend trip or a few days out of town. Bank fishing, creek mouths, farm ponds, the dock at a friend's place. The PLUSINNO does that job without any fuss.

It is also a fine second rod to keep around for a guest. Tyler, my grandson, is ten and has his own push button rod, but on the Saturdays he brings a friend along, this is the one that gets handed out, and nobody has complained about it yet.

And it is a reasonable pick if you are new and want one thing to start with. It will not hold you back while you learn to cast. Just respool it with fresh line before your first trip, and expect to work a little harder to feel a soft bite.

Who Should Skip It

If you fish from a boat every trip and you have rod holders and a locker, skip it. A one piece or a standard two piece is the better tool, and the collapsible feature is worth nothing to you. Same if you fish big water and need distance, or if you are casting to schooling fish that stay out past your reach. 5.91 feet is 5.91 feet.

If you fish heavy cover with big baits, skip it too. Medium heavy on a short rod is not the same animal as the heavy broomsticks you flip mats with. And if this is going to be your only rod, the one you want to do everything for the next ten years, I would put the money into a one piece and a rod sock instead, then buy something like this later as the spare that lives in the truck.