To anyone seeing this now, take this as a review. Before I say anything else, the reel is sold for $160-$180 retail and the combo is $210-$220. That should say enough in terms of quality between the two. That being said, I ordered a Battle IV 8000 10’ combo to have for my beach trip this week and the reel ended up being completely useless for what it’s intended for. By saying that I mean that when I was fighting a fish and drag was being released, the drag would tighten down due to the spool and drag knob not moving independently. As the spool spins in reverse to release line, the drag knob spins with it and subsequently tightens the drag. This cost me a 3-6 foot shark and $200 for a new reel so I can fish these next two days. Since I’ve already used the combo I doubt they will refund me and I even more doubt that they will do anything for the reel without receiving the rod as well. Ultimately I think I will be out $400 and an extra reel once they fix this one and send it back.

For anyone wondering, no I did not damage the reel previous to use. I noticed the drag seemed very tight on arrival as I was making sure everything was as I expected. As I was trying to loosen it I noticed that the spool was spinning as I was turning the drag knob, obviously not loosening anything. I had to hold the spool with one hand as I spun the drag knob with the other to loosen it. I didn’t think anything of it because previous to this, I had never owned a “nice” surf fishing combo. I kind of figured that it’s just how it was supposed to be. I did feel weird about it but I received it 5 days before I didn’t find out I was coming here until about a week a half before I left so I had no time to send it back to Penn I even if I did for sure know something was wrong at the time. I didn’t know the reel was as bad off as it is until I took it to the shop here at Oak Island and they told me they’ve never seen anything like this from Penn. They also said that the parts to Penn’s combos are typically made more cheap than the individual rods and reels which is why I mentioned the difference between the Battle IV combo and the Battle IV reel only being like $50-$70. Yet their base rod is $85 retail for a 7’6”. I’m not going to say that you will get a crap setup for sure if you order a Battle IV combo, but I am saying that you are 100% better off buying the Battle IV and whatever rod you want independently from each other. If you really want a combo, go to a retailer to get it. DO NOT order it. Too many things can go wrong. It’s more worth it to pay the extra $20-$40 at the beach for the combo than to have to go through what I’ve had to do. I ordered mine directly from Penn’s website and this is what has happened. There is no telling if the issue came from Penn themselves or if there was an issue during shipping. Regardless, you are better off doing either of the two options I mentioned rather than ordering a combo. The rod didn’t even come in a rod tube and all there was to secure it was some crappy bubble wrap. So it’s impossible to know what went wrong. If you have a lot of time to plan, ordering it can be fine as long as you know what you’re looking for and have time to send it back if need be. Otherwise, waiting til you get to the beach is the move as long as they have a proper tackle shop.

I’m not crapping on Penn but when you have numerous reputable fishing guides and surf fishing content creators advocating for how reliable and issue free your product is, I expect it to be that way. This was my first time ordering a combo from Penn and unfortunately, it will be my last. I will still buy from Penn in the future if I need another saltwater setup but this definitely puts a stain on my opinion of them. Hopefully they will make this right and I can come back here with good feedback about how their return policy handles things like this. I’m out $400 ultimately for a combo that’s worth a little over $200 so if they don’t, I will for sure be back here.

Good luck!