Penn Carnage III West Coast Conventional Rods

Penn has finally created a dedicated rod series that will fit right in on the west coast, everything from light anchovy flylining for albacore up north to rail fishing for 300lb+ bluefin out of San Diego. These rods don’t break the bank but manage to pack in a lot of performance, from the blank construction down to the choice of guide set or reel seat these things are perfectly balanced for the style of fishing we specialize in. The rods feel comfortable and have a nice bend to them, I would mainly stick to the middle ratings on all of the rods since some of the broad ranges can be a bit optimistic, a rod that fishes 30lb well will not fish 80lb well also. So far all of the rods we’ve felt have a light tip with a bit of bend followed by a decisive shutoff making them feel reminiscent of Calstar Grafighters, they are a bit thicker than some of the other imported rods we’ve seen but that won’t affect the fighting performance too much.

The lighter rods feature Fuji KW silicon carbide insert guides which are top of the line for the stainless guides in their respective line ratings, they also choose to go with Fuji DSPM graphite reel seats to save weight while still providing plenty of strength. The next step up once you get to the 30-60lb line classes you have an upgraded Fuji DPSH heavy duty graphite seat which is great for the mid range line classes before an aluminum reel seat is needed. And finally on the classes meant for fishing 60lb+ you’ll get a Seaguide Aluminum reel seat which provides all of the durability you’d need in the heavier tests. The heavier rods also feature Fuji HB guide frames which are as strong as a ring guide can get, these also feature the SiC inserts which are a further upgrade. The 40-100lb and 30-80lb rods feature a gimbal, while the others do not since they aren’t needed for the lighter class rods and the same goes for the rail series.

These are probably the most exciting and relevant rod release Penn has had in many years, at least for our market. Big thanks to Steve Carson who did an amazing job helping develop this series to make sure it is right for our market, everything from the model choice to the components and finally to the fine tuning of each model to suit our needs. These rods have undergone a lot of testing and use in our market so they should be a good addition to the arsenal of any angler.