I just picked up two of these rods a couple of weeks ago. Out of the box they looked great and felt great in the hand, still do. However, the first day out on the water I was very disappointed with the lack of sensitivity. I have a Hallow Point and a Ballistic rod from Old18 and love them a lot and expected the same great product. Unfortunately, out of all of my other similarly priced rods from several different brands, these two Ascent rods are the least sensitive rods on my boat and I’m not quite sure what to think about that, as I had really high expectations of them. You live, you learn I guess.