While this is big news to some, its not to the rod designers and rod builders at Hastings Rod Manufacturing. Long rods work, and work well. The myth that you will "get worked" while using a long rod, is not true for rods which have been properly designed and built. Our long rods can actually make your life easier when fighting a fish. These rods can be simply fished by watching the rod tip and winding down when the tip comes up. The force that is generated by the rod is not limited to the tip of the rod, the entire rod acts as a lever against the fish, working for you, not against you.

Now to Darren's story in his own words.

I was fishing on the Braid 8 day Excel trip that ran from June 27th to July 5th. I had the 80 Monster Mag specially built just for fishing Alijos. The idea behind it all, was to have a Trinidad 20 and a short 40lb topshot. For fishing tuna from 60 to 120 pounds this outfit was perfect for me. The outfit was extremely light, due to the rod and very castable.

Getting to the action, on July 1st 2003 in the early morning
around 6:00am various signs of tuna were around but it was very scratchy. It consisted of a bite of mostly smaller yellowtail (15 to 30 lb). Some folks were fishing spanish macks and others elected to use sardines. I waited and hunted for the right bait for about five good minutes before I found the mother of all sardines. It was about 9 inches long and had a very healthy tint of green to it. I carefully nose hooked the bait and made a good cast from the port starboard corner. With about 100 yards of spectra out I got bit. The fish made several fast and powerful runs making me believe that I had a nice tuna on. While fighting the fish i was amazed of powerful this 8 foot rod was. It felt like a custom 5 foot tuna stick. Using the rods backbone and the beefy Trinidad gearing I managed to bring the fish to gaff in about 20 minutes.

That's when everyone could not believe there eyes as
the giant yellowtail came to gaff. The 80 monster mag made mince meat out of this burly Alijos yellow. When it hit the deck I was still in shock and to this day I think that it is still the case. How could a 8 foot rod do this??? Well it did and I KNOW that only a Graphite USA 8 footer could have accomplished this triumph.

Darren Binkley