I fish them hard enough to wear down the grips. But I don’t know that any pole could handle that better. I run braid but the all metal guides look great after ~3yrs(I was told the guides would get sewn through by the braid). It’s a little stiff at the tip for small game. But gives extra strength for game above what you’d normally want a 10’ pole for. Also that extra stiffness gives it a healthy launching power that I really love(casting 4-5 oz). It’s a new set of specs for their line up. I hope they keep it.

I must admit that I have quite the collection of reels, and like to rotate them. So I might fish with a reel about once a year, depending on where I am going and what species I hope to hook up with. The first time I took this out, I hooked up with what I believe to be a grouper based on the way it fought. About 10 minutes into the fight, the drag broke as I was lifting up on the reel and the reel spooled and the line broke. What was weird is it was allowing drag to go out at the time. Unfortunately it was outside the warranty period even though it had only been used once. I had a local tackle shop do the repair as the guy who owns it has been repairing my gear for years and I've never had any issues with his repairs. This weekend, on the third trip for this reel, it did the same thing. So now I have a $300 paper weight on my desk, and make it a point to tell all my customers about my experience and how I will never buy another Penn reel. It's not the cost of the reel as much as it's the cost of losing a fight to a monster fish that upsets me the most. Unfortunately from other reviews I've read on other websites, this is a common issue with this reel, where the metal grinds together and the reel seizes. You would think that Penn knows this is a defect in the reel and would gladly fix the reel, but no dice.

Haven’t been able to use (cob-19) it yet bu, wish to soon.

Well made and amazing action for the price

Beautiful rod, well made love the grip. Will fish with it this week. However, whoever loaded my order put it on the wrong pallet . Should have matched 28129 zip code. Was put on 28001 zip code pallet . Good thing I clicked on detailed tracking or it would have been delayed 3 days. Called the post office at 28001 zip code and picked it up. What a hassle! pennoutlet.com let me down badly on the shipping. Glad I checked the detailed tracking or I would be 6 hours away on a fishing trip without this rod. CHECK YOUR TRACKING! You may not get what you ordered if the order got sent to another town miles away.

Husband likes this reel. He's very happy with it. Now he can go fishing! Price was good & got here really fast!