I have been looking for a strong light weight blank to replace my Seeker CJBF80H and ran across the St Croix 2M80XHF with some amazing ratings for only a 6.2 oz blank. Looks as though it will make a very good light snapper rod here in Florida. Some comments on this blank being a good choice or not is appreciated.

FYI, St Croix tends to 'underrate' their musky blanks. They can handle more weight than they are rated for.

jeremy

Thank you. This one is rated 50-100 which I find amazing for such a light weight rod so I will give a try and see how it handles snapper. The heavy seeker handles them well and it is a 30-80 and heavy.

Dwight, IIRC that seeker is rated around 40# class at the middle of its rating. I'd wager it could deadlift that amount. If you take the middle of the st. croix's rating as 75#'s I can pretty much promise it will explode if you try to deadlift that amount. Very different rods. To me the musky blanks bring the ability to fish a lot of lead while being light and sensitive (and that is why I bought one). I would never think they actually had the ability to lift anywhere near the rating. I'd put deadlift closer to 20-30# range depending on angle of inclination. They are fresh water rods and the seeker is a salt water rod.

If you want more for the blank weight think black hole/phoneix type blanks.

A "light snapper" rod for florida need not be very powerful unless you are fishing strong currents.....honestly the fish aren't that big nor tough. I'm intrested in black hole's tai specail for mutton.

Russ in Hollywood, FL.

Thanks for the tips. That blank is actually listed as Musky/Saltwater but regardless of that if it can lift a 30# weight off the ground without exploding then it will work just fine for me. The blank is on the way so we shall see very soon what it can take. Been hooking some really fat red snappers without snapping my 40 lb leader. So after I build it I should just see what kind of a dumbbell that I can lift with a 40 lb leader. If the leader snaps and the rod doesn't then it passes and will work just fine.

The blanks finally arrived today and I gave it a good test with my wife holding down and it is a very strong light weight stick. So, it may just cross a snappers eye balls. Will find out soon.

In the first minute of use with 40 lb leader and 21 lb of drag it snapped like a toothpick about 3 inches from the fore grip. No more St Croix blanks for me. I talked to the factory rep Friday and he told me that musky fishermen use 21 to 25 lb of drag so I played it safe at 21 lb and snapped almost immediately after hook set. Fish surged and I pulled back and pow.