I'm interested in hearing other opinions on this topic. As I type this, I've got 5 St. Croix rods broken out towards the tip of each rod. I'll send them in to St. Croix for repairs but that's not really cheap. I own the Premier, Triumph and a few of their Panfish series...lots of money tied up in rods!! I probably like the Premier rods better than the other two rods.

That said, I'd really like to step back a bit and start using 7-8ft long rods that are cheaper price wise than the St. Croix rods. The St. Croix rods are very nice and certainly detect bites with their sensitivity, but I question the durability of them and pricing of them. When you walk out into your pole barn and are staring at basically $1200 worth of rods in which over half are broken at the tips, you start to wonder if the whole thing is worth it or not.

What's a quality 7ft rod below $75?? Does it even exist?