I was wondering if anyone has any experience with St Croix, Phenix or MHX extra heavy powered (40-50lb) travel blanks. I have a friend who will be fishing PNG for Black Bass and is after something with a lot of grunt down low with a fast tip.

thanks in advance for your comments

Ben,
What is PNG? If you find what you like please post a follow up here I would be interested too. I have only only used the lighter MHX travel blanks. love them.
Buzz

I believe PNG stands for Papua New Guinea

"Black Bass" probably means black sea bass, which presumably differ from our smallmouth and largemouth bass. How big are these PNG bass and what is their preferred habitat? Will this rod be used for casting, trolling, fishing bait, deep jigging, or fly-casting?

Yes PNG is Papua New Guinea and the fish are Papuan Black Bass, from the same family as the US cuberra snapper, grow to about 50lb (im sure there are larger ones around!) and hit like no other fish. live in the jungle so they prefer structure which makes landing one difficult and requires some heavy duty tackle
rod will be used for mainly casting large baits/hardbodies

I would think a rod less than 7 feet long would have the leverage to keep fish from rushing into cover and a rod with a slow action to keep from casting bait off and manage the instinct to strike too fast.

Batson developed a series of travel rod blanks for peacock bass in the jungle. The IC 747 and 847, the shorter one was developed for throwing the heavy hard baits all day. A gentleman I built the 7 ft. blank for did indeed later have me build the 6 ft. 2in. version because the 7 footer wore him to a "frazzle" in his words, the shorter rod has a considerably stiffer tip as I remember. I think Schneider's has some still on sale in the Hot Specials section.