The Compre's are aight. I'm not a shimano guy by any means. I've only heard good things about them so far. The guy at Cabela's tried to steer me away from St.Croix and I wanted to tell him where he could shove his darned Shimano but I refrained. I'll be blunt:everything i fish with is St.Croix and i'd only buy anything else if it was a Loomis or Kistler. My pick for a muskie rod: St.Croix 7' Heavy Premier or Avid, doesn't really matter, avid is just a bit fancier with an Abu Garcia 6500 Ultra Cast. You simply can't beat that combo. St.Croix makes a muskie series for their Premier models, unsure on the Avid models, but I haven't had the joy of playing with them yet so I don't know what to say. For the little muskie fishing i get to do anymore, it's st.croix/abu garcia. I think we have 5 or 6 6500C3 or ultra cast reels, all of them outperform any other brand.