For most of my life the fishing rod has lived in the boat. That was fine until Ray and I started taking road trips, because a two-piece rod does not fit in the cab of a pickup. You lay it across the seat and it pokes him in the shoulder every time he reaches for the gear shift. You stand it in the corner and it slides down behind the seat, and you forget it is there until you hear something crack. I bought the PLUSINNO telescopic rod and reel combo in March 2026 for exactly that reason, and for no other.
Eight months and two road trips later, the Smoky Mountains in May and the Arkansas Ozarks in August, I have a short list of why the telescopic rod travels better than any two-piece I have owned. Not a list of claims off a box. A list of things that happened or did not happen in a truck, on a public bank, and at a picnic table where we ate sandwiches. The PLUSINNO is not a perfect rod and I will get to that at the end.
The rod that rides behind the seat instead of across your lap
Carbon fiber telescopic pole, 3000 size reel, line and lures in one carrier case. This is the travel kit, not the boat rod.
Amazon Check Today's Price on Amazon →It rides behind the seat instead of across your lap
Collapsed and in its carrier case, the whole thing disappears behind the truck seat. I do not see it. Ray does not move his elbow for it. Nothing else in the cab has to shift. The rod is 5.91 feet when it is out, and when it is packed away it is a bundle I can hold in one hand with two fingers. That is the entire point. Everything else on this list is a result of that one fact.
It goes from the case to the water in about a minute
A two-piece rod has two joints to line up, and you do it standing on a bank with wind in your face and cold fingers. The telescopic sections come out in one motion, one after another, until the tip seats. I do it by feel now. The first time took longer because I was afraid of forcing a section. Do not force a section. Extend, twist gently, and it seats.
The reel arrives already on the rod and spooled with line
The PLUSINNO kit is a rod, a reel, line, lures, hooks and the small accessories in the same box. I did not have to match a reel to a rod or buy line on the way out of town. The reel is a 3000 with 12 plus 1 shielded bearings and a 5.2 gear ratio, and it came spooled with monofilament. Whether that is the line I would have chosen is a fair question. It was on the spool when I opened the box, and it caught fish in Tennessee before I had any reason to change it.
One small box of terminal tackle covers the whole trip
The Plano stays in the garage with the crappie jigs and the bass plastics. Only the StowAway box with hooks, weights and terminal tackle goes in the truck. A telescopic rod and that one small box is a complete travel kit that fits in a grocery sack. That has never once been true of the boat setup, and I have been dragging that setup around for years.
It turns a bank you would have driven past into a fishing spot
Coming back from the Ozarks we passed a public access with a gravel lot and no boat ramp. With a two-piece rod in the truck, we would have kept driving. A rod behind the seat changes the arithmetic on a twenty minute stop. I bought a non-resident license in both states and fished from public banks, and at no point did it feel like I was setting up camp to do it.
At 1.2 pounds it goes in the day pack on mornings you are not planning to fish
Rod and reel together weigh 1.2 pounds. I have carried a camera bag heavier than that. On the Smokies trip I put it in the day pack on a morning we had no fishing plan at all, and when we came around a bend and found water, I had it with me. Nothing I own is more likely to stay in the truck than a rod that is a nuisance to carry.
The handle swaps to either hand in about fifteen seconds
The reel handle is machine cut, it collapses, and it moves to either side. Ray does not fish, but he held it once at a picnic table to see what I had been going on about, and it took me about fifteen seconds to switch the handle for him. Small thing. It matters when you hand the rod to somebody else and want them to actually use it.
Medium power is right for the fish you actually catch from a bank
It is a medium power rod built on 24 ton carbon fiber with a fiberglass composite, and it is rated for 10 pound line. That covers trout and small bass from public water. It is not a broomstick and it is not a noodle. It is stiff enough to set a hook and forgiving enough that a nine inch trout still feels like something on the end of it, which is most of why I fish.
Eleven pounds of drag and 28.9 inches of line per turn
Those are reel numbers and they mean more on a bank than they sound like. I can turn a fish away from a fallen log without winching it in, and I can let line go when I need to. The reel is the plainest part of the kit and I will say so. It has not seized, slipped or started grinding in eight months of riding around behind a truck seat in the heat.
You stop leaving the rod home, which is the whole thing
For years the good rod stayed in the boat because taking it anywhere else was a chore, and a chore is a reason not to bother. The PLUSINNO lives behind the seat of the truck now. It goes where the truck goes. A rod you have with you beats a better rod sitting in the garage in Cadiz, and I have proved that to myself both ways.
What I'd Skip
The telescopic design has a cost and I am not going to dress it up. You cannot flick a lure into a tight pocket under a cypress the way you can with a one piece rod, because the sections stiffen the action toward the tip and the rod does not load the same way. It is not a boat rod and it is not a tournament rod. When I fish Lake Barkley out of the jon boat, I take my older spinning rod and leave the PLUSINNO in the truck, which is exactly what I have done on every boat trip since March. If you are buying it as your only rod and you fish serious water, you will be disappointed, and that will be the decision's fault, not the rod's. Buy it for travel. Check your own state's license rules before you wet a line across a state line, because they are not all the same and none of them are free.
Eight months and two road trips, and the case has never once been the reason we kept driving.
Buy it for the truck, not for the boat
Rod, reel, line and lures in one carrier case, 5.91 feet out and out of the way packed. Get a non-resident license and fish the bank in front of you.
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