[Charkbait]

I won't get too much into distances to avoid the internet BS. I will say that I outgrew my practice field and had to go to a taped up sinker for some wind resistance after picking my 10oz out of a tree. With an 8 I should get to the holy grail of 600' in my next session or two, and hope to possibly hit 600' with a 10oz, which I'm not too far from doing. Right now I'm the only thing holding this rod back. It will throw all you can handle with ease. I did toss an 8 a few times before laying into one and placing it in the woods, I'm not sure if its from coming down from a 10 or what but I can barely notice the 8 on the line when launching. I've said before that I don't care about distance casting, I want distance on the sand but I'm going to have to throw some 8's on a bigger field and see what I can do.

I can say I picked up an additional 20 yards consistently in my first session and my accuracy was unchanged which has been quite good lately. Because the rod is such a beast I am able to throw a 10oz with a 7-8ft drop and pickup some distance, as I get used to that timing I'm sure I can milk some more out of it.

The rod has prety soft tip for a "superheaver" and actually loads easily with an 8, it transitions into a very stiff mid section and a softer butt. Once I get used to the soft butt and learn how to cast I'm sure I can get a ton more distance out of this rod. As for fishability it does bow up pretty nice when when put under load...like trying to un-plug a sinker. The tip seems like it will have good bite detection for when the snappers are in and stealing bait and is only a 9 for you rod geeks out there.

I'd like to throw a Nail before making a comparison but from everything I've read this rod will blow it off the beach, maybe not for throwing bricks but for fishability without breaking your back. My initial thought that this rod is not for everyone. At 13' and fairly heavy you'll have to be on the larger side to get it moving, especially with a 10 or 12 attached. I'm 5'11 and about 220lbs at the moment but have pretty long limbs and I powelift so I can compensate for my height a little. I would guess a good starting point to be 6'0 and 200lbs and hopefully be able to benchpress your body weight or be a very good caster. I'm not a very good caster but I bring a lot of violence to a hatteras cast so this rod seems like a good fit for what I want.

Here are some shots of the build, I'm pretty happy with the way it performed so far. If any of you are interested I can certainly build you one...any of the AFAW rods for that matter. You can get them factory built with a set of coasters or I can build it nearly as you see here for the same price with cork and a reel seat.

Hope you don't mind me posting a bunch of the same pics, I', trying to figure out the camera settings to get good ones to post. Looks like a tripod is a necessity...and no flash. Sorry for the rod being dirty...I should have shined it up.