Help me put together a good all-around selection of rods

If you could only bring 6 rods with you on every largemouth and smallmouth outing you went on through the course of a season, what would they be and why?

If it had to cover both largemouth and smallmouth here’s what I would have:

7’10 – 8′ Frog Rod
7′ M St. Croix for for all around LM Bass Stuff, swim jigs and big cranks spinnerbaits
7′ MH St. Croix for all around heavier LM Bass Stuff
6’6″ MF St. Croix or 6’6″ 783 GLoomis for Topwater/Jerkbaits/small crankbaits and in-tight situations
6’6″ MH St. Croix Spinning for skipping docks
6’6″ GLoomis 782 or 6’8″ St. Croix ML Spinning for finesse

Once you determine what you want look into Abu Garcia veritas 2.0 rods. They go on sale for $79 every year. They are unbeatable for the price, I do think they lose to more expensive rods on light biting fish/finesse applications though.

Garcia has a lot of good rods for the money. I have a Veritas, it’s very nice.

I wish there was a place that stocked all of the models to compare in person.

Fluffchucker wrote:

If you could only bring 6 rods with you on every largemouth and smallmouth outing you went on through the course of a season, what would they be and why?

I would go to Scheel’s — very good selection of rods that carry the BEST warranty Period!!!

Break one and take it in and walk out with a brand new one
Great Customer Service

Of the rods I currently own.

7’4″ Daiwa Tatula Heavy. I use it for Frogs, but it would also work with jigs, punching and texas rigs. This rod is the bees knees.
7’4″ St. Croix Mojo Crankster Medium. Chatterbaits, traps, cranks, and topwater. Kind of heavy rod but it really chucks a bait out there.
7’3″ St. Croix LTB Carolina Rig MH. Toads, frogs, spinnerbaits, buzzbaits, swim jigs. Very versatile rod.
6’8″ St. Croix Avid Medium. Topwater, jerkbaits, chatterbaits, crankbaits, flukes and senkos, texas rig. This rod is also the bees knees.
7′ St. Croix Avid Heavy. Jigs and Texas rigs. I use this for Texas riggged craw tubes.

Spin
6′ Fenwick Techna AV MH. Flukes. This is my dock fishing rod.

Casting
-7’6″ med heavy Fenwick HMG- small to med swim baits, jigs, pitching, flipping
-7’0″ med heavy Fenwick HMG- jigs, chatterbaits, t-rigs, top water
-7’0″ med Skeet Reese “worm and jig” rod- spinner baits, crank baits, square bills
-6’9″ med heavy Abu Garcia Veritas 2.0- swim jigs

Spinning
-7’0″ med heavy Abu Garcia Veritas 2.0- finesse jigs, wacky rigs, tubes, jerk baits
-6’6″ med heavy Fenwick Eagle GT- weightless senkos, shaky heads, jerk baits

If you could only bring 6 rods with you on every largemouth and smallmouth outing you went on through the course of a season, what would they be and why?

Brand who cares pick what you want. Ugly sticks!!

7’6″ heavy fast action casting Jigs texas rig carolina rigs. Pegged or unpegged
7′ Mh fast action casting Senkos, weightless texas rigs,
7’2″ Medium action casting crank baits, topwater
7′ Mh extra fast action casting frogs, buzzbaits, spinnerbaits
7′ med mod spinning Dropshot, shakyhead, finesse jig
7′ mh fast spinning light cranks, flukes, weightless plastics

Thanks for the tips guys. I ended up over at the St. Croix rod factory last week, and picked up three new rods. Still need to pick up one or two more, but they’ll have to wait a while.

As far as reels go, I’d like to hear your thoughts on baitcast reel speed and application.

Topwater/jerks: 7:1+?

Shallow-Med crankbait rod: 7:1 or 6:4? Faster?

Spinnerbaits: 7:1

I’d read an article last week written by a pro who basically said that he fishes almost all 8:1 or faster reels now. His reasoning was that he can always reel slower, but liked the line pickup speed if/when he needed to crank a fish out of cover or bring the bait in and re-cast quickly. Thinking back on this article makes me wonder if I’m I thinking too slow with my reel choices?

I kind of tend to agree with the pro and have gradually switched out of my 6.4:1’s for 7.0:1 or higher. In the old days you lost cranking power by increasing retrieve speed but not so much any more. Faster is better for me any way ~

My 7 rods would be:

Spinning-
5′-10″ St. Croix Legend MXF “skipping” rod with a weightless Fat Ika
6′-8″ Fenwick Smallmouth Elite Tech MXF for wacky worming
7′-2″ Daiwa Tatula MXF for Rippin Raps

Casting-
6′-8″ St. Croix Avid X MXF for jerk baits/topwater
6′-10″ Shimano Crucial MF for square bills
7′-3″ Ducket White Ice MH for crankbaits
7′-6″ Cabelas Tournament ZX HXF for flippin’ jigs/plastics, frog gin’

6:1 is probably as slow as you want to go, unless you are gonna do a lot of deep cranking. I made the mistake of buying a 5:1 a few years ago and tried using it for lip-less cranks over grass and it was way too slow.

Also, remember you don’t absolutely need the fastest reels, a lot of it is just marketing. I frog/pitch heavy cover with a 6.3:1 and do just fine. I will be buying more 7:1 and 8:1 in the future to try out though.