Ya totally. Plenty of rods that cost 5 times as much cant put down as much power. Again, I'm not trying to say ugly stiks and TLDs are ideal by any means... but they do seem to work ok
And that reminds me of a very important point, for anyone who might be wondering. The clean release of the big black begins DURING THE FIGHT. 2 key factors made this fish so easy to release. She swam back down after about 2 or 3 minutes.
1. The second you get it off the bottom, you horse it up as hard and and fast as you can. They sit on the bottom forever and just run and run and are unstoppable. But as soon as you got on top of them and see them on the meter, you have to go full gas. The greener they are when you get them up, the faster they swim down. Don't exhaust her with an hour long fight. You know its a black after about 2 minutes. Either go full drag, or thumb it and try to break it off. (just dont burn your thumbs, or drags for that matter
)
2. Once its up to like 30-40' (you
are watching your sonar as you fight fish, right?) back off the pressure big time. They will float up from there. Its important to let them come up slow for the last 30 feet, as the gas inside their bodies is massively expanding. If you horse them all the way to the surface they will barf their guts inside out. If you can get them up to 60', usually the fight is over. Let them just chill and burp their way up from there, kinda like Charlie and the fizzy lifting drinks!
Same goes for whites, if you ever find yourself releasing those...
