Not too long ago I bought a Cashion 7'6 deep cranking rod. Then I bought their 7' worm and jig rod. Shortly after, I made the decision to complete switch my arsenal to Cashion. I fished with several of their offerings and thought it would be fun to do a review.
I am not affiliated with Cashion, as far as I know they have no idea I exist. I'm doing this partly for fun, partly to inform people, and partly to support a NC company (I'm from Cary, NC, living in California). All the rods were paid for by myself. The rods retail for $180-$200. They feature Fuji micro guides, Fuji reel seats, and a unique carbon fiber woven split grip handle.
I won't be doing a super in-depth feature summary, and won't be posting a ton of complete pictures. Cashion has a website and Google is your friend. This is mainly my experiences with the rods. However, this blurb from Cashion has the general gist:
"Finally we use a high grade carbon fiber and manufactured by a uni-directional process to manufacture the blanks. This ensures the carbon fiber runs perfectly straight from the butt to the tip. Equally important the uni-direction carbon fiber does not wrap or twist as it travels the blank, ensuring the carbon fiber is aligned at 0° without rotation. As well as the uni-direction process ensures Cashion Blanks are extremely strong because the rod will not twist under load. Finally this allows vibrations to have a straight path down the blank to your finger tips providing ultimate sensitivity."
Every rod maker on the planet claims their rods are the most sensitive. Fortunately for Cashion, they make a strong case. I am not a rod builder, so I will not go into the technical details of the rods. This is just a layman's perspective. Finally, the rods feature micro guides. So if you're not a fan of micro guides at all I would maybe check out another brand.
Before we get into the good, lets go through the bad:
THE BAD
Tip heaviness
Most of the rods I have are a little tip heavy compared to other brands. Tip heaviness is an interesting topic to discuss. The confounding factor is the reel, as the reel weight makes a big difference as well. Some anglers are balance queens, others don't care as much. For me, being tip heavy is a con, but there's a big difference standing in my garage comparing two rods and saying "hmm this one is tip heavy", versus fishing and saying "this is tip heavy". Meaning, if I don't notice it fishing all day, then it's pretty negligible. All the Cashions I have fished I had no problem fishing 8 hours with. In fact, every fishing trip I put zero thought to it. It was only comparing rods did I find a difference, and it was pretty small.
Just a few examples: The M8437 worming rod has excellent balance. The M87473 football jig rod is slightly tip heavy, but it's also my favorite rod. The worst offender is the P90472ts spinning shakey head rod, this one has the most noticeable tip heaviness, but paired with a 8.8 ounce reel it feels acceptable. For the record, out of the dozens of rods I fished, only ONE was so tip heavy it bothered me. It was a Gander Mountain brand combo. In summary, while Cashions are a little tip heavy, it has no affect on my enjoyment and use of the rods, and it's not even a thought when fishing. For objectiveness sake, it's still worth bringing up.
Fit and Finish
Some have criticized Cashion for lacking in fit and finish, particularly regarding line guide wrapping and epoxying. Fit and finish is also a tough thing to evaluate. Keep in mind, when I say fit and finish, I'm talking about mostly cosmetic details, if the rod is messed up functionally then that's not a fit and finish problem, it's a "I have a trash rod" problem.
The biggest criticism is the line guide wrapping. Cashion has been accused of overwrapping the guides, causing a football/bulbous appearance and adding unnecessary weight. I took some pictures and compared to other rods, intending to post in this review. Then a funny thing happened, when reviewing the pictures, I realized I had some trouble telling which ones were Cashion and which ones were other brands.........so, that's kind of tells you all you need to know about the line wrapping issue lol. The exception are the spinning rods, they have one blemish which I believe should've been fixed. Here are the pictures:
Pretty sure this one is a Cashion
This one is a Cashion, the line wrapping is a touch more bulbous and the micro guide gives it away
This is a Powell Endurance. The wrappings are slightly thinner, but the difference is small.
This is a Lew's Custom Speed Stick Lite. Again, slightly thinner, but also longer.
Dobyn's Fury. The wrappings on this rod were very clean, big props to Dobyns, the Fury is their lower middle end "budget" line.
So far so good. Nothing here suggests that Cashion guide wrapping is noticeably worse than other rods. They may be slightly thicker but they're also shorter, so the amount of material seems to be the same. The spinning rods are a different story. The spinning rods also are decently wrapped EXCEPT FOR THE TIP. Every spinning rod I own has thick epoxy at the tip connection.
I would say this is probably the only noteworthy wrapping issue. Cashion definitely should have smoothed these out.
Well that's probably the most anyone wrote about guide wrappings. Anyways, the point is that none of the Cashions I own (about 13) have egregious line wrapping issues. The only noteworthy fit and finish issue was the thick epoxy on the tip joint on the spinning rods.
Some rods had minor imperfections near the handle and there was some extra epoxy under the hook keeper on one. But understand here we're really nitpicking. Every rod had straight guide alignment except for one, in which the tip guide was just slightly off center. Overall, I would say the fit and finish of these rods is just acceptable. Cashion can definitely improve on this, they already have a strong product and fixing minor imperfections and shoring up QA would really take them to the next level.
THE GOOD
Well it feels good to get the bad out of the way. Let's talk about the good. There's a lot of good with these rods. And it starts with the sensitivity.
Sensitivity
I remember when I bought the worm rod, the first thing I did was go straight from the store to a pond to try it out. And that's pretty much all she wrote. Every rock, every twig, was like an mini earthquake. Okay yeah that was an exaggeration. The point is, these rods are sensitive. When I bought the football jig rod, same deal. As I kept picking up more Cashions, the same thing revelation happened. These rods were just more sensitive. We're talking about a $150-$200 price point here, so don't think I'm saying these are better than $300-$400 dollar rods. I haven't fished with rods that expensive so I have nothing to say about that. But when comparing across the same price point, these rods are freaking sensitive. I fish a lot of clear water California reservoirs, so finesse is my game. Sensitive gear goes a long way and these Cashion rods help the cause.
Loading up
At some point we're delving into subjective territory. I realize that. Still, I have to say, these rods load up nice. What I mean is that, when you feel that tick, or see that line move, and you swing on it, it feels nice. That's the essence of fishing right there. You feel it evenly throughout the rod. I'll have fun swinging on fish with a branch, but with a Cashion, it's heaven. Because of this, the rod offers excellent control fighting the fish as well. I don't encounter issues such as uneven load, too much "bounce", and rod twist.
Durability
I have stepped on and dropped these rods multiple times. Still going strong. The micro guides feel solid and very firmly wrapped.
Ergonomics
The handle is definitely unique. It's a carbon fiber split grip with a unique pattern. Being used to foam or cork my entire life, there was a short adjustment period, but after fishing countless hours I love the handles, to the point where cork or foam feels too spongy for me. The hard handle and sensitivity makes me feel more connected with the bait.
Summary
These rods are pretty simple. There's no crazy paint jobs, vents, or "bling" as I would say. They have unique handles and micro guides and that's about it. I love how purposeful and minimalistic they feel. Their primary strength is sensitivity and their primary job is catching fish. I'm a big fan and will continue to use these with pleasure. The criticism I have is they could improve their fit and finish a little bit. I pair up all my rods with mostly Curados and Chronarchs. It's a deadly combination.
