Good article on fishing rods

https://www.messagemedia.co/millelacs/sports/steve-fellegy—nervous-minnows/article_0d0031f3-5fa4-58c6-9284-9bed267fe17c.html

I have plenty of $20-$40 rods and I can pretty much disagree with most of that. Cheap rods might be fine in calm conditions but add some wind and current and sensitivity become much more important. The ability to feel a nervous minnow isn’t the same as feeling a light bite in current or wind/waves.

Lindy rigging is also much different than jigging. Lindy rigging requires someone to feed the fish the bait. Jigging requires you to set the hook the second a fish hits.

Having just returned to the open water fishing after a long hiatus away from it due to that thing called life that includes raising kids working etc I’m going to be building my open water gear from scratch. Back in the day when I was much younger and life was far less busy I fished everything with a Ugly Stick and a old Shimano bait caster. That combo was designed to land a whale! Don’t remember for sure but knowing my finances back then I doubt I had more than $50 invested in that combo. I fished everything from pike to gills with that same set up and yes I did catch fish of all those species on that combo.

Today no one would ever consider that combo for pan fish. But the fish didn’t know the difference. I’m reminded of that scene in Jeremiah Johnson when trapper Chris Lapp is teaching Johnson how to hunt Elk. They walk out of the tree line along side their horses away from the Elk and Johnson asks “What if they see our feet?” Chris Lapp responds with “Elk don’t know how many feet a horse has”! Well I guess you could say the same for fish. Fish don’t know how much you spent or what kind of equipment you’re using all they care about is what’s in front of their face at that moment and whether they want to eat it or not.

Now with that being said over the last couple years I upgraded my ice fishing gear from cheaper off the shelf rods to TUCR rods. Do the fish know the difference? No. Do I? Yes. I know I miss less fish now than I did before. Oh I still miss my share like we all do but I know it’s not as many and I attribute that to the higher end rods. So with that knowledge I’m going to build my open water gear with better equipment.

I like the article and agree on most his points. People do over analyze hunting and fishing products and overpay for a lot of things.

I will say, I enjoy quality products and sometimes you’ll end up paying a little more for those over el’cheapo stuff.

I think today most of the article is as relevant as when it was written in 2007. There have been some improvements to line and rods and even hooks.

Like Bob alluded to, use whatever makes you happy when fishing. If using a 20′ cane pole with 20lb Dacron line and a clip on bobber makes you happy go for it.

If you’re rigging live bait on a $500 guide’s honey hole, I don’t imagine the rod matters much

I think people should buy the best within their budget. With the advent of braided lines sensitivity in a rod is moot, in my opinion, so less expensive decent rods will get a person by. The rod is only part of the whole equation and I think more should go into the reel.

One thing I have noticed on the newer higher end rods is the use of those micro sized guides. If a person fishes much in cold weather, like today or colder, he’ll be picking ice from the guides as much as he is fishing. Add brain to the package and he’ll be picking ice from both MORE than he’s fishing. I have several rods that I crappie fish with that have the tiny eyes and think they go a long way in getting extra casting distance, but I don’t have these rods out when its even remotely close to cold enough to get ice in the guides.

It’s a great article by Steve and is more true today then ever. I’ve been down that phase of fishing with $300 – $400 high end St. Croix and Loomis rods. After paying that much….no body was going to tell me they weren’t worth it. My experience in the last few years is that both rod and reel technology has equalized and you can find some amazing rods under $100 these days. Lucky 13 rods at Fleet Farm for $50 (on sale) or even the lowly Berkley Lightning Rod for $40 in most peoples hands, balanced with a good reel such as a Pflueger President, and you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between my Avid with a CI4 on it. In Canada I host many friends in the boat and often supply the rods. My go to rod is a Scheels Series one with a Stella, very light and sesitive. I also have a 13 rod with a Black friday Cabela’s reel made by Pflueger. When I hand them my best rod and remind them not to drop it, it’s $1000 they shake their heads and say how nice the cheaper 13 setup is. Beauty is in the eye of the spender!

As a troller, $40 rods work great all day long but I want a $200 reel with butter smooth drag.