After some delays, my reel finally came this evening. I'm so happy. Got the fluorocarbon on and test casted it. It's so smooth. Can NOT WAIT to get this thing out on the water

On 4/10/2026 at 6:19 PM, TNBankFishing said:

I agree with rangerjockey, and I can articulate two reasons.

The first is at this point in your fishing journey you don’t know what techniques you love to fish. This isn’t an attack or belittling you, but how many hours have you put in across all techniques you have tackle for? Do you know for a fact you’re going to be throwing a jig day in and day out for the next 5 years to warrant spending the money?

For example it took me over a year to trust jigs. Initially I never caught anything and assumed my jig/rod/location was the problem. It ended up being me. I didn’t have the patience and feel to know when a jig was cast into a high percentage location and the experience to know when it was picked up. We can all tell when a bass thunks a jig and runs off, but the subtle pickup was a mystery to me. I missed a ton of fish until I sat down and really worked at the craft. Now a jig is the first thing I throw. A couple of my friends still hate them. Only throw Trigs and even then only up to a 1/4oz. They hate the weight and how the bait performs for them. A brand new NRX jig rod would sit in their rod locker until it’s pity party time.

I don’t think you’re at the point you know you’ll if you love throwing bottom contact all day.

My second point is you’re going to have selective anxiety about choosing the “best” rod. I did this when I moved into my current career and high end equipment became a possibility. My first high end purchase was a Mh Zodias back when they had foam handles and had just come out. Was the ~7ft MH. Went fishing and was blown away compared to the Walmart sticks I’d been using. So naturally I wanted more. The hook up tackle YouTube showed me a bunch of high end JDM Megabass rods. I called up the shop and Ben said he had a fantastic junk rod in stock that did everything. So I ordered me a MB Destroyer Carbon Head Wild Bunch. It was… not that much better than my Zodias. It was too heavy powered, too slow actioned for anything I wanted to do. Imagine a current P5 super destroyer style rod. Not a bank fishing junk rod unless you know what to throw on it. I didn’t know why this rod wasn’t working and assumed I had made a mistake. So I picked up what people said were the best this and that because I didn’t have the time on water to actually know what I wanted.

Over the course of a year or two I ended up with about 20 sticks where I actually only wanted about 3 of them.

Learn from my mistake. Instead of 1 $600 rod get 3 $200 sticks which cover all of your bases.

St. Croix Victory 7’4” heavy. In stock at the rod locker used last time I checked.

Evergreen/Daiwa Elite MH.

Zodias 6’10 medium.

Yoooo sell me your Wild Bunch if you still have it. Please and thanks.

Coincidentally, the P5 Super Destroyer would be the rod I'd recommend if OP didn't want something longer and NRX-sensitive.