From what the Penn reps summarized at the recent ICAST show, the mission objective of these new Ally rods is to offer the highest quality product for the best possible price. With price points of $100 for the spinners and live bait sticks, $120 for the conventional boat rods and $150 for the standup/trolling models, Ally rods aren’t cheap knock-offs, nor are they prohibitively expensive. Like the man stated, the goal was to make “the best rods for the money.”
Ally rods all share a common lineage and use quality components that include heavy duty Pacific Bay graphite or machined aluminum reel seats and gimbals; specially designed EVA Torque foregrips that are contoured to fit the hand perfectly and minimize the rod from twisting under a heavy load; Fuji LR Turbo, N or SV flared frame guides, with the addition of machined aluminum PacBay stripper guides and roller tips on the standup/trolling models. Ally Boat rods are custom designed and balanced for optimum performance regardless of the targeted inshore, near coastal or offshore species.
Every member of the family features a super-strong one-piece tubular glass blank with a solid tip that Penn dubs SST or Solid Tip Technology for added durability. The real benefit of this type of construction is that Ally rods should be able to withstand the occasional negative experience of getting caught in bad places like your car door, getting jammed into the garage ceiling or getting dropped on the deck during a feeding frenzy. Whether you are pitching a live bait to striped bass or bluefish with a spinning rod, working a jig on a deepwater wreck for cod and pollock, trolling for tuna or drifting for sharks, Penn’s Ally boat rod series has something that should interest you and warrant a closer look for your type of sport fishing.
I had the opportunity to get a pair of Penn’s 6.5-foot, 20- to 50-pound Ally boat rods to test for this review and they performed admirably in a variety of situations. Hooked up to a pair of Penn 330LD graphite levelwind/lever drag reels spooled with 400 yards of Western Filaments’ 50-pound hi-vis TUF-Line superbraid, these sticks were tasked with a triple play of duties all in one trip. They worked flawlessly trolling up small skipjack and little tunny football tuna, were equal to the task of jigging up a few cod off a deepwater wreck and were also able to tame a few big blue sharks when we set up a chumslick in 25-fathom waters. When you can’t carry a lot of outfits onboard, it’s nice to know that one rod can really be a “jack of all trades” and literally do it all.
The model ALLBW2050C66 rods that I tested were equipped with heavy duty Fuji Turbo guides, a beefy PacBay graphite reel seat, Penn SlickButt and PacBay aluminum reel seat. The EVA foam Torque foregrip worked as advertised and was very comfortable to hold in the hand when slugging it out with a large and stubborn gamefish. I also found the rod’s fast taper tip to be a big help when snapping a 40- to 50-yard cast out from the boat armed with a four-ounce jig.
Penn has a real winner with their new Ally family of boat rods. They use the best possible components, look good, work great and are fairly priced. I’d sure like to get my hands on one of those trolling/standup sticks and give that a real test the next time I run into a 300-pound mako.
