Personally, I do not enjoy “jackpot” fishing. The atmosphere is quite tensed. With money on the line, everyone is in a hyper competitive mode. Bad words are thrown around freely, and cussing is a norm in such events. With such tensed fishing atmosphere, mistakes have got to be minimal; better if they are nonexistent. For high pressured fishing events such as this, the Abu Garcia Conolon rod series has rods that feel right at home. I decided on one and paired it with the awesome Penn Slammer IV reel (5500).