I bought this rod for shark fishing. Used it for the first time last night. I was throwing half a bunker and a 6oz pyramid in a fish finder. It doesn't cast as far as I'd hoped but I do get more distance than I could on my earlier setup. After some trial and error (and losing a rig getting snapped off on a cast), I found the trick was to use an extra long shock leader. 3-5 wraps on the reel is not enough. After I put a dozen wraps (65# mono), I could cast with full power and believe me, 6oz sinker and half a bunker far exceeds the load rating. I think the reason I got the snap off had to do partially with the small number of guides and also the size of the guides - especially the first one. It's kind of small and I think it caused some overrun which got my knot caught up in slapping the guides. With the extra long shock leader, once the rod settled down well into the cast, the line flow stabilized and didn't have such an effect on the knot. I'm using 30# braid main line connecting with fg knot.