Up until relatively recently I had absolutely no idea that Penn Europe had a bunch of lure rods in their lineup which were designed primarily for lure fishing for species like bass and so on. So when I was contacted and asked if I wanted to see this Penn Conflict Elite 9' 7-38g lure rod many months before it hit the market, I didn’t have a clue what to expect other than it was a 9’ long rod which was meant to fish 7-38g lures. That was it. Back then I had never even heard of let alone seen their cheaper Conflict XR and Conflict Inshore rods. I know a bit about Penn spinning reels, I know that they obviously make a lot of fishing rods for different ways of fishing all around the world, but the sort of lure fishing rods we might use for bass fishing?
From time to time I come across a lure rod which doesn’t do a huge amount for me on the (somewhat unscientific!) waggle test, and instead takes proper fishing time to really open up. For a while I owned and loved the incredible and not remotely cheap Shimano Exsence Infinity S900ML/RF 9’ 5-32g lure rod, but with the work I was increasingly doing with Savage Gear it became pointless me owning a rod like this and not fishing with it enough due to testing and sampling other rods so much. I ended up selling the rod, but my point here is that you could easily have picked that rod up, had a waggle, bent the tip against the ceiling, fished with it for a quick session - and thought what the hell? Over time though I began to appreciate just how special that Shimano rod was. The more I fished with it and used all manner of different lures and techniques, the more I began to understand what the rod was really about. The rod so badly needed to be fished with and I obliged. Regularly.
And bloody hell am I glad I gave this incredible Penn Conflict Elite 9' 7-38g lure rod a decent amount of fishing time instead of a few waggles and intelligent sounding mutterings as I bent the tip against the ceiling. I can’t recall fishing with a lure rod that gives me such similar vibes to fishing with that stunning Shimano Exsence Infinity S900ML/RF 9’ 5-32g and the more powerful but still almost ridiculously subtle Exsence Infinity 9’6’’ 6-38g version. I reckon I could slip this Penn Conflict Elite 9' 7-38g lure rod in between the middle of those two seriously high-end rods and nobody would bat an eyelid apart from the fact that the Shimano rods weigh less. Yep, I genuinely think this Penn rod is that good, so whilst I would never try and say that north of £300 is anywhere near a budget price for a lure fishing rod, I love this rod that much I actually think it’s a bit of a bargain.
This new Penn rod just works. It’s so easy to cast, indeed it’s got to be up there as one of the longest-casting 9’ lure rods I have fished with. It’s completely effortless at putting my lures out there. I don’t care what type of lure I use on this rod, they all work great. I am happy whacking a 35g Surf Seeker on this rod, and whilst the 38g top end rating can be done without much hassle if you slow down, I think the rod performs better at 35g and below. I have fished with the 13cm/33g Sandeel V2 Weedless many, many times on this Penn Conflict Elite 9' 7-38g, and often in some deeper water than I might usually fish as well. If you know how I cast, I can give a rod a proper whack if need be, and I have repeatedly hit that lure as hard as I possibly can with this rod. You don’t need to do so I might add, because this rod is so efficient it eats the lure up no problem at all. My shoulders never complain and I can do what I need to do with a lure like that - swimming, bumping, sink and draw etc.
And I come back to the word tension again. With what I get to see in fishing, it strikes me as pretty easy to just make a stiff lure rod, but to make a lure fishing rod that is so easy and efficient to cast for hours on end yet feels so fast and light and responsive when you are retrieving lures? Not remotely easy if you ask me, and I reckon it’s all about that word tension. When I whack something like the Patchinko II or the Savage Gear Slap Walker 12.5cm/20g out there and work them across the top (they fly!), I need to get the feeling when I work the rod to the side or tip-up when the lures are at range that the tip isn’t collapsing into the stroke as such, but also that there is the right amount of give in the tip so that you aren’t messing up the action of the lures. Not too stiff and not too soft. Just the right amount of tension right through the whole rod, that’s what I am after, and this Penn rod gives it to me in spades. Same as those far more expensive Shimano Japan rods I was on about above.
Unless I am after something purely for whacking bigger metals and so on into a proper bit of surf and wind then any lure fishing rod I might use has to cope well with various soft plastics rigged mainly on weedless hooks or lighter jig heads. I fish with soft plastics more than I fish with hard lures these days, but you might not and that’s just fine. I do though, so I need my rods to feel at one with these lures and this type of fishing. This Penn rod whacks out all the sub-surface hard lures you might expect it to, but I need it to cover me as much water as possible with my Gravity Sticks and Slender Scoop Shads and so on, and then help me fish them properly. It does so, and with such ease as well.
Okay, so if the world was perfect I’d like the handle length to be perhaps a centimetre or two shorter, but there’s a flat bit on the rear duplon grip which I find my left hand naturally gripping on to when I’m casting and this works really well for me. Where your hand sits behind the reel - the bit you screw up on the reel seat to secure your reel - is all well and good with dry hands, but when water is splashing about or it’s raining, I could do with a grippy rather than shiny section where the back of my hand naturally sits. Again I can live with it just fine, but at some point I am going to find some grippy tape and put it on that little bit of the reel seat. I understand that some anglers like those hook-keeper things so I can’t exactly complain about it, but I don’t use them because I always clip my lure into the first guide which I know winds some anglers up. Have you ever, ever damaged a guide doing this though? I haven’t, and that includes driving many thousands of miles with rods strapped to rod racks on the front of my car, often with a lure clipped into that first guide. A few very minor niggles but of course we all like our rods to be certain ways.
I need a lure rod which isn’t going to make repeated casting of soft plastics a chore, and with how this Penn rod works with me, as I said above it’s a frigging gun on the casting front. I haven’t really got a clue how one measures sensitivity in a lure fishing rod, but I’m feeling all I think I should be feeling whilst accepting that rougher and/or windier conditions will always reduce what is transmitting back to me through the rod. As much as I do also like a very pokey lure rod like the Shimano Exsence Genos “Wild Contact 90” S90MH/R 9' 8-48g, this Penn rod is far easier to fish with, and from spending a lot of time watching other anglers fishing, I also know that this Penn Conflict Elite 9' 7-38g would suit far more anglers far better than the out and out pokers. This Penn Conflict Elite 9' 7-38g is not a cheap rod, but with how it works and when I think of what I would genuinely put it up against, I really do think that this Penn lure rod is worth every single penny. How about that for my first Penn lure rod experience? Impressed ain’t even close. Completely blown away more like.
Likes:
Extreme ease of casting and fishing
Overall build quality and look
Perfect “tension” and feeling of precision for me
Deals with all the sort of hard and soft lures I want to use on a 9’ rod like this
Reminds me a lot of the highest-end Shimano (Japan) Exsence Infinity rods
Niggles:
Lack of grip where my reel hand sits on the back of the reel seat
Handle length could be a smidgen shorter
At 166g it’s not the out and out lightest 9’ lure rod you can find, but yet again it’s how good it feels in the hand when paired with the right spinning reel when you’re actually out fishing that means the most to me
Here are a few specs and blurb from the Penn Europe website:
FUJI SIC K-type SW proof guides
High Modulus 40T Nano Infused Carbon blank
Carbon X-Wrap Technology for extra strength and better casting accuracy
“To cover the growing demand for High-end Inshore rods, we hereby proudly present you the PENN Conflict Elite rod series. This series of Japanese style inshore rods has exceeded many seabass and bluefish angler’s expectations. The incredible lightweight High-modulus 40T Nano Infused carbon rod blanks are extremely lightweight and provide an excellent balance of stiffness and sensitivity. The blanks are finished with Carbon X-Wrap technology to make the blanks even stronger and providing better casting accuracy. The sensitivity in the upper part of the blank will let you feel even the smallest bite and are perfect for working your lure, while the beautiful backbone in the mid-and lower part will help to set the hook properly and keep the fish out of any structure. The best anti-tangle FUJI SIC K-type guides and FUJI reel seats give are making these rods really lightweight yet very durable. The PENN Conflict Elite inshore rods have been designed with help of a great team of inshore anglers and cover all aspects of fishing along the coast; as a result there is always a rod in this range that will perfectly fits your style of fishing!”
Disclosure - If you buy anything using links found around my website, I may make a commission. It doesn’t cost you anymore to buy via these affiliate links - and please feel entirely free not to do so of course - but it will help me to continue producing content. Thank you.