Many of todays float rods bend to the butt,i'm sure yours do when your using 6lb sensor straight through for barbel,there are rods and rods,some you wouldn't give the light of day,that's all types of rod,all I know is this I bought a 13ft acolyte ultra,a nice rod,I used it in a swim for chub,had them to 5lbs,had a big problem getting them up the peg quick enough to stop them getting into reeds,fished the same swim with a cadence 13ft no.3 and found I could hoss them up the swim quicker,now these findings sound quite obvious,but without actually using both rods with identical floats,lines,hooks etc you wouldn't really know,i'm sure I have several other rods that would have given more grunt too....