[TxBuddha]

Anyone have any experience / feedback on this rod? I'm starting to get the offshore itch and want to start acquiring my own tackle.

BTW, my intended use for this is chunkin' for tuna as well as deep drops for AJ and grouper.

 

[newman]

I got to pull on the first proto-types at the fishing show back in Feb and then we had some at our booth at the Summer Boat Show at Reliant. The rod is very light and has SERIOUS backbone! It performed beautifully for me on both the TBB 07 and the recent GEM 07. I had a hard strike near the bottom in 480' of water and really wished I had used 80lb mono leader instead of 50lb because the leader broke from chaffing not from a clean bite.

I put my Avet JX 6:1 on it and am very happy with the combo. This winter I will probably respool it with some of OTI's new 80 lb jigging line and put an 80lb mono leader.

If you are also looking for a spinner I can attest to both the 7' Popper and the soon to be released 5'6" 600 gram spinner for jigging. The Popper performed beautifully on YFT to 70lbs matched to a Stella 8000 set with 17lbs of drag. As for the 5'6" 600 gram I witnessed a 50lb YFT get beat in less than 5 minutes on the prototype spinner that should be released before Thanksgiving.