War Eagle 44

Another Curado 300 fan here. It's been fantastic IMHO for these type duties, plenty of power, drag, & line capacity. I've also used an Ambassadeur 6601 and it gets the job done as well but it's no where near the refinement level of the Curado.

My "go to" is a Shimano Symetre 2500 or 3000 My favorite is my Stella 3000 FD

I couldn't agree more with this.

I, like many others here, got Bassmaster for a number of years but I've also let it run out. It just didn't seem as if I was getting the "quality" info that I feel I get from Bass Angler Mag. It's the only one I currently subscribe to.

I'm a big Spro fan, if I could only fish one brand this would easily be my choice. Having said that I agree that R2S also makes a very good frog, I want to try the new Bully Wa II.

Nice, I'll take 2!!

I have both the E6X and the Max 3D. Of these two the Max 3D is the better rod in my opinion, by a pretty wide ( and surprising ) margin.

I too use 5# on my ultralight. It's also a 1000 size Shimano. This stuff is fantastic in this pound test isn't it! I couldn't believe the casting distance I was able to get after switching from 4# fluorocarbon.

Powell Max 3D 736 CEF is a good fit for what you're wanting to do. They are really great rods.

I have this rod, I haven't used it a ton yet but so far its been great. I've used the regular Max 735 as my frog rod for the last 5 or 6 years and was so totally happy with it I never even looked at another frog rod. The 735 was the first Powell I ever tried and I liked it so much that I eventually bought 4 more. They have been my main rods ever since, sure I have other rods but the 5 Powell's get the majority of my time. When I first heard about the Max 3D rods I wasn't all that fired up, I was actually shopping around for a new "main" brand just to switch it up a little after using the same rods for so long. I tried the new Crucial series (which are pretty good rods by the way) and the new Loomis E6X rods. I wasn't as satisfied with the E6X rods as I thought I'd be so I started looking around again. I picked up one of the Max 3D rods in the shop to play around with and I instantly knew these were the rods I was looking for. Of course since the frog rod was the rod that started me with Powell in the first place I figured that was the model I should try in the new series first. Its even better than the original, I absolutely love it. I plan to get more soon, I know I'm getting a 795, 714, and at least one spinning model. Its lighter, more sensitive, more responsive, and just flat out fishes better than the original. Its a fantastic rod and I couldn't recommend it more.

I too would pick up a Curado I. The Citica would definitely be second on the list. After that I'd go with the Daiwa.

A fun little experiment to conduct is to have your buddy fish a totally different color frog than you at the same time. There have been days when one color absolutely out fishes the others, I'm not saying this is the rule every day I'm just relating my experiences of fishing two totally different colors at the same time. I have a friend who almost exclusively uses black, every now and then there will be a day where he certainly gets more bites than I do but the majority of the time a "natural" looking color gets more bites in my area.

Owner Twistlock is the only way to go in my opinion. I'm not all that concerned with bait durability I'm all about hook to bite percentage and the Twistlock hooks provide that.

In my experience a natural color works much better than either a solid white or black frog. I've had pretty limited success on a black bait but I've had moderately better luck with a white frog. It just seems to me the frogs with contrasting colors like leopard work better than just a solid bait. Outback is my favorite color frog, it gets totally crushed in my area.

As I've stated many times before frogs are my favorite way to fish so I spend quite a bit of time throwing one. I couldn't disagree more with this opinion on rod choice. Many guys use the Dobyns 736 for all of their frog fishing, example being Matt Allen. I've always used a Powell Max 735 mag heavy and love it. I throw all of my frogs and toads on this rod no matter if it's heavy vegetation or open water. I've just recently picked up a Max 3D 736 and I love it even more than the original Max. I have absolutely zero trouble casting for distance, accuracy, skipping or working/walking my frogs. I've also never had any trouble with fish coming unbuttoned. As with most everything in life there is more than one way to go about doing something and that means there will always be different opinions about the best way to go about it. These are just MY opinions, nothing more. I'm certainly not trying to say that I'm right and the guy above is wrong. His opinion means just as much as mine.

Having just recently gotten into finesse spools and "bfs" style fishing I can confidently tell you that the Yumeya MG spool for the 50 size Shimano reels definitely makes quite a bit of difference over the factory spool. I'm not the world's best caster but I was using my stock 50E spool with 20# braid (no backing) with zero brakes on quite successfully. I was fairly impressed with the reels abilities stock, all I've done is to properly clean and oil a set of Shimano spool bearings and thoroughly polish the inside of the pinion gear. Changing nothing but the spool the reels abilities and ease of use went up greatly. I'm in love with the 2 shallow spools I have, both of them being Yumeya. The second spool is for a Chronarch B and it too made an amazing difference.

I agree with this 100%.

My vote goes to the Powell Max 3D 736 CEF.

I only have one Max 3D so far but I find them to be much improved over the original series. I'm a big Powell fan so I plan to pick up 3 or 4 more 3D rods in the near future.

I agree with the other guys who said Power Pro. I also disagree that SunLine braid is the best, I've personally tried 60 and 80 pound and both lines exhibit stretch.

The most important part of a good frog rod is power, IMHO of course. I've never really understood the guys that say you need a flexible tip in order to accurately cast and walk a frog. I've been using a Powell Max 735 for the past 6 years or so and I've never once had trouble casting or getting great walking action. I've recently picked up a Powell Max 3D 736 CEF frog rod and couldn't be happier. It's even more powerful than the 735 and I haven't had any problems casting or working the frogs with it either. It's a fantastic frog rod! Both of them are 7'3" mag heavy extra fast rods. Of course the 736 is more powerful as its a 6 power compared to the 5 power 735. The new Max 3D line is an improvement in every way to the original Max line. Both series are great and I especially feel that it's going to be very hard to find a better rod in the Max 3D price range of sub $200 rods.

Even though I only have experience with the E6X line of rods I think I'd go with the Kistler. I'm a big Loomis fan but I wasn't overly impressed with the E6X blank. Don't get me wrong it's a nice stick but I feel there are better rods out there at the $200 price point. I personally think that the Powell Max 3D rods are a much better rod in this price range. Of course I'm a huge fan of Powell so take my advise with a grain of salt. If I'm not mistaken I think the KLX has a blank from North Fork Composites so I just expect it to be superior to the E6X blank.

I'm using the Owner Zo Wire Twistlock flipping hook. Best flipping hook I've found bar none. My bite to land ratio increased 2X as soon as I started using this hook. I also get more flips in a days fishing with this hook because I'm not having to stop fishing to readjust my plastic every ten minutes. The Zo Wire is stronger than the usual steel used for hooks so therefore Owner is able to keep the diameter smaller on these hooks without giving up any strength. This is good because the slightly thinner wire of this flipping hook as compared to its competitors makes getting good penitration on the set easier. Sorry to have gone on so long there, these are all things you could learn for yourself if you are interested and give these hooks a try.

This is just my personal opinion but I think the D-Bomb blows the Sweet Beaver out of the water in every possible way. The only area the Sweet Beaver has an advantage is color selection. Don't get me wrong I still have quite a few Sweet Beaver baits in my boat and still fish them so I'm not trying to say that they're a garbage bait I'm simply trying to convey just how much I think of the D-Bomb.

The Powell Max 3D 736 CEF is my new favorite frog rod. For the past 6 years or so I've been using a Powell Max 735 and it was great but the new Max 3D 736 is on another level. I use it for all my frog and toad fishing no matter where or how I'm fishing a frog. It's an absolute fantastic rod!