All Star Team (AST) fishing rods

All Star Team rod up against a redfish and a dock

Poppin' Cork and Jerk Shad are the saltwater AST options

Rat redfish caught on AST rod

All Star Team rods on the Folly Pier

The new All Star AST rods were put to the test over a weekend of fishing out of Folly beach that included sight-casting, chunk-baiting in the surf, structure fishing and even pier fishing. The 100% graphite rod blanks on the JerkShad and Poppin' Cork rods provided plenty of backbone while the split grip cork handles gives the angler plenty of feel. You need the backbone when a big redfish comes calling, but you also need the feel when a small whiting taps on your hook. My Penn reels were spooled up with Berkley Trilene line that absolutely breezed through the Fuji guides. The JerkShad rod had me casting like a pro, and when asking my fishing partner if I could place it any better, at times he said the cast was in a perfect spot. When you hear that, you know the equipment helped to put you in position to catch a fish, and now the ball is in the court of the fish to bite or not. But that's fishing....  But don't just take it from me, click over to All Star Rods to see the entire selection of rods and watch the video by Bassmaster Davey Hite explaining why he uses the All Star Team Rods. Rigging up the 7-foot All Star Jerk Shad rod with a topwater lure, I cast in the direction that Capt. Tucker Blyther directed. I twitched the rod tip over and over to make the lure have 'walk the dog' action. The key is to twitch the rod tip faster than you reel in the lure, and I found that the fast-action of the Jerk Shad rod tip to provide a perfect presentation of that topwater lure. Later on with the tide low and incoming we moved the boat closer to the marsh and rigged up the moderate-action 7-foot All Star Poppin' Cork rod with a live bait. With a feeding fish in clear view, it was up to the angler to place the float near to the fish, but not so close as to spook the fish. The rat redfish that ate my bait was released to fight another day. While fishing next to a dock, the strategy is to get hooked up with a redfish and then to bulldog him out of the pilings before getting broken off. Several reds screamed the drag on my reel, but when it came time to horse them out, the All Star rods were up to the challenge. Finally, spending the afternoon fishing off the Folly Pier, I switched over to double-drop rigs baited with pieces of shrimp. While no bruisers came along to test my tackle, several small fish like whiting and weakfish were reeled in. As an all around saltwater angler, I might take my rods into any situation, just as I did these new All Star Team rods. Check them out exclusively at Academy Sports and Outdoors stores.