The original ELITE earned its following the hard way. Anglers fished it under pressure, kept it in the rack season after season, and never stopped asking Cashion to bring it back. The ELITE PRO keeps the styling and feel they asked for, then upgrades nearly everything else.
"Anglers have been asking us to bring the ELITE back for years” says Founder and CEO Matthew Cashion PhD. " We weren't going to hand them the same rod over again, so we rebuilt it. Everything they loved about the original is still there, and everything we've learned in the last decade went into this rod line. Giving serious bass anglers another American made option at this level is exactly why I started this company."
A new blank, and a first for the category
At the center of the series is the CR6c, a carbon fiber blank finished in Cerakote. Long trusted in the firearms industry for abrasion resistance and durability, Cerakote has never before been applied to a fishing rod blank. Paired with Cashion's Energy Dispersion Jacket (EDJ), which absorbs and disperses impact without the weight of traditional heavy clear coatings, the CR6c protects the carbon fibers while holding onto sensitivity. The result is a rod that runs 16% lighter than the flagship ICON series.
"Cerakote earned its reputation on firearms, where abrasion resistance is everything," said Reid McKinstry, Operations Manager. "Getting it onto a carbon fiber rod blank was a different problem entirely. The coating has to cure without compromising the epoxy matrix, and it has to load and unload with the blank through thousands of casts without cracking or deadening feel. Our team spent a very long time dialing in the chemistry and the application before we were satisfied. What comes off the line now is a blank that takes a beating and sacrifices nothing."
Upgrades carry through the rest of the build: stainless steel K-Frame guides with zirconium inserts, a soft-touch ACS reel seat with increased blank contact, and a locking hood nut washer.
The carbon fiber grips stayed, and that was deliberate. Carbon is dense enough to move vibration straight through the material and into the angler's hand, which is a large part of why the original ELITE built its reputation on feel. The ELITE PRO keeps that density and refines the surface with a subtler texture for better comfort and feel through a long day on the water.
Built technique by technique
The ELITE PRO is a tournament bass series, and the lineup reflects it. Thirty models span casting and spinning, with dedicated builds for cranking, lipless, deep diving, worm and jig, Carolina rig, chatterbait, spinnerbait, chatter grass, popper, jerkbait, topwater, flipping, frog, punching, glide bait, A-rig, and BFS, plus dropshot, Ned and shaky head, stick bait, and a full set tuned for forward facing sonar.
Cashion was an early adopter of bait finesse in the U.S. market, and the ELITE PRO BFS models carry that work forward.
Made in Sanford, start to finish
Every ELITE PRO blank is rolled in Cashion's Sanford, North Carolina facility using high-performance carbon fiber pre-preg sourced in the United States. Blanks, grips, and finished rods are made in America, and every one passes a 33-point quality control inspection before it leaves the building. The series is backed by Cashion's Lifetime Warranty.
The ELITE PRO Series is available at cashionrods.com and through authorized Cashion dealers. Retail pricing starts at $229.95.
