Brian11719

For typical size spinnerbaits I personally like a heavier rod so I'd say the 744C. Bladed jigs are a whole different rod for me but there's plenty of people that throw them on a fast action rod and the 743C would be ok for that IMO if you like a fast action rod for them. The 743C would also be my choice for a texas rig although it is a couple of inches shorter than the one I have for texas rigs overall I'd say that one is a pretty nice rod for texas rigs especially if you aren't going into super deep water or if you happen to be targeting specific structure vs. trying to cast as far as possible.
 
For the second question I'd argue the St Croix Victory line is slightly better for some purposes than the Kaden line...although I really like both lines and companies and they both come with an outstanding warranty program (and I own rods in both lines)...also right now the Victory line is on sale at American Legacy so even though it's normally a bit more right now it turned out to be $114 and $120 for the two that I picked up yesterday. They also have a chart that you might be interested in here:
 
If you don't care so much about a warranty the new Lew's Custom Lite Rods are pretty good. They usually retail for about the same price as the Kaden line and sometimes you can find them on sale for around $120. They also have a newer type of grip (I forget the name off the top of my head) on them that I personally really like. Overall I prefer the Victory and Kaden lines and most of my rods are either St Croix or Dobyns but those Lew's rods are also pretty good. Plenty of rods at a lower price point but I'd argue you usually get what you pay for (unless you are patient and wait for stuff to go on sale which seems to be the trick with buying fishing rods lately).
 
Also to your point on action there was a video Gary made about the Sierra vs Kaden line (probably still easy to find on google) that goes over the difference and TLDR the Kaden series was meant to be a faster action series...St Croix rods in general usually have a bit more of a moderate action while the Lew's ones in that Line that I own feel a bit faster like the Kaden...if you can get to a local tackle shop and hold some of them and check out the action I'd always suggest that but if not might be able to find some review videos on youtube that review some of them and use that to help make your decision. Hope you really like whatever you end up deciding to go with and catch a lot of fish with it...

I mean technically you can use whatever you want but I'd personally suggest a heavy fast casting rod for frogs. I did use spinning gear when I first started throwing frogs and doing that can work...I just used smaller frogs (I still have a Strike King KVD Pipsqueak Popping Perch that I haven't opened yet) and a medium heavy fast spinning rod with 30lb braid. Having said that I eventually saw why people suggest a dedicated frog rod and personally don't feel like you need a super expensive one. In my case I went with a Heavy Fast Lew's TP1X but if I had to do it over again I'd probably go for the Dobyns Fury FR 735C but you could probably go even less expensive and get something like a heavy fast lew's carbon fire and have something that would be pretty good for flipping and punching into heavier stuff as well as throwing frogs. Like others have said medium power seems like it might run into issues either when they pull you down into the grass or when setting the hook I guess it depends on how big the fish are and how much grass is around but I personally feel like you might lose some on a medium rod which would suck because it's already tougher to get a bite on a frog (although it's awesome when you do).

So when it's that cold I'd be throwing an a-rig or a drop shot. Don't let it bug you or take it personally it's harder to catch them when it gets that cold. One thing that's not so great about our era and everything being recorded the way it is is that you don't see the 'bad' on sites like youtube just instant gratification and the appearance of catching multiple fish in seconds...it's (almost) never like that and especially not when the water temp is still that cold...if it were me I'd be sticking to my victory spinning rod with a red bug trick worm on it to be completely honest...realize people try to bag on the drop shot and swear by baitcasters and power fishing but there's a reason why the drop shot wins so much money every year...