I picked up the rod from school the other day and finally fished it today. The rod is very crisp and responsive. When Pete told me it might too stiff, I was thinking to myself, dammit, this thing is going to be a broom stick. The slightly faster action casts the longer leader system very well. I also noticed that from take to hook set was much faster with this rod. The hooks were set in the roof of the fish's mouth more than not, which tells me that I was able to hook the fish as soon as the take registered. Very few fish were hooked in the side of the mouth, which would indicate that there was some lag time between the take and hookset.

The rod kept the fish on quite well. The tip is bouncy enough to keep the fish on. I fished 6X tippet today and the only breakoffs were to trees It played even the smallest fish quite well.

The rod performed extremely well and the extra six inches makes a difference from the Greys. The Greys is a great rod. However, they have a little catching up to do right now...