What Are Your Favorite Setups (Rod&reel) And For What?

[WiscoBassman]

I have a 6'6" medium heavy ugly stick with a cheap cabela's fish eagle tournament II baitcaster reel (cheap combo, I know) that I'm planning on using for large lures, jigs, topwater, larger spinnerbaits, most of my plastics, and working around heavy cover. I also have a 6'6" medium FX2652A Shimano rod with a Shimano FX2000FA spinning reel that I'm planning on using for crank baits, smaller spinnerbaits, finesse baits, in line spinners, buzz baits, and lighter lures. I fish for both smallmouth and largemouth.

 

 

What do you guys use? For what? 

[JeziHogg]

My favorite Rod I have is my XC72MM (St Croix Legend Xtreme) I use to throw square bills up to 3/4oz (its rated up to 5/8 but handles the extra little bit of weight fine). Also doubles as a decent jerkbait rod.

[ww2farmer]

I carry 12 combos in my boat, some of them for technique specific purposes, and some of them do double or triple duty for multiple techniques. Is all that needed? No, but I enjoy it. I could get by with just a handful. Personally of all my combos, my favorite one to fish all day is my St Croix 7' M/F Legend Tournament casting rod, and Shimano Curado 51e reel. It's a pretty good "all purpose" set up, that can fish most everything I do, except punching heavy cover, or chucking large, deep diving cranks

[flyfisher]

My favorite is a 6'8" MXF st croix rage matched up with a shimano Stradic spooled up with 20lb power pro super slick that I use mainly for weightless plastics and the occasional shaky head. Something just feels right with that rod. A close second is my cranking rod which is a 7' kistler helium MM with a BPS pro qualifier.

[MyKeyBe]

I like to keep it simple and cheap. Field and Stream Tec-Spec 6' 8" medium/fast and a Curado 201 B. For $120.00 it looks good, feels great, and gets the job done!

For spinning I use an Abu Cardinal 101 and a Fenwick Venture 6' 4" medium. Most amazing $40.00 combo ever! Works for me anyway.

[EvanT123]

I have a 6'6" medium heavy ugly stick with a cheap cabela's fish eagle tournament II baitcaster reel (cheap combo, I know) that I'm planning on using for large lures, jigs, topwater, larger spinnerbaits, most of my plastics, and working around heavy cover. I also have a 6'6" medium FX2652A Shimano rod with a Shimano FX2000FA spinning reel that I'm planning on using for crank baits, smaller spinnerbaits, finesse baits, in line spinners, buzz baits, and lighter lures. I fish for both smallmouth and largemouth.

What do you guys use? For what?

I think you have it covered especially if you are bank fishing. The first thing I think about before I go fishing, is where I'm going fishing. If I plan on going to the river and the cover is rather light I will bring a medium power baitcast rod and if I'm going to a lake ill bring a medium heavy. One thing that is always with me is a 6'6-7 foot medium fast spinning rod. With all that said I also think about the baits I'd like to use that day; if I want to throw spinnerbaits at the river ill bring the medium heavy and leave the medium baitcaster home.

On a side note for all you bank fisherman. Google earth is you best friend; if you have a phone with google earth utilize it and find new spots its a great tool. For those days I being 6'6 med spinning and 6'6 med heavy baitcaster.

Finally joining a fishing forum is a gift and a curse. A gift because you interact with great people willing to share advice and experience. A curse because you can read these forums and think you don't have the right tool for the job. If you catch fish with what you have how is it not working?. Think about how, what, and where you like to fish and expand or refine from there.

[nwmike]

Powell endurance 764 with a quantum tour edition reel loaded with 20 pound fluro.I use this setup for pitching and football jigs.

[motodmast]

Mine would be my *** *** Black 7'3 MH with a pinnacle XS-HI with 14Lb fluoro.

[bmlum415]

Dobyns Dx744c with a lews tournament pro for bottom contact

[Blues19]

My favorite is my 6'6" (6'5" now cause I stupidly caught the tip in the door when I was moving home from college, UGH!) Medium Extreme rod with the original Ardent XS baitcaster. I threw smaller plastics when I started, moved into throwing some top waters, and now I throw spinnerbaits exclusively on it. It feels amazing with spinnerbaits. The reel doesnt have a great drag system cause Ardent was still figuring it out, but it doesnt bother me too much. I love that combo. Since getting a new rod and reel I feel might be good for a spinnerbait, I may go back to using my favorite combo as a small plastic rod again. Its my favorite because it feels amazing and I can throw anything i want on it. Its my utility rod

[Arv]

Dobyns Champion 702c with a Curado 51e. I can fish most applications on here but I really like it for shakey heads and smaller jigs

[nipopotamme]

my rod is a team daiwa spin jigger. It's 2m70 long and cast weight is 7-25gr and action is fast. i have it mounted with a team daiwa match spinning reel in size 3012, it has a ratio of 4,7:1 and 79cm retrieve. I choosed that reel cause it was the only real four concept that i could affort me.

 

I use this combo for fishing texas and carolina and weightless, also small minnows, and spinners. i realy love this combo.

 

 

 

now i'm looking for a baitcasting rod and reel. with normal ratio and about 15-60 gr, for throwing big spinnerbaits and lipless crank's.

 

also i like to say that i'm not a bassfisher but a northern pike fisher.

[38 Super Fan]

Falcon Cara Finesse Jig Rod, and Lews TP.

[Mike L]

Phenix M1 MH/F with JM Sig for spinners and chatter baits

Fenwick Techna AV with Curado 200E7 for plastics.

 

Can't decide which I like better.

 

Mike

[Teal]

I dont have a favorite. I love all of my "kids" the same. Lol After all, I carry 15.

Most of my rods come from the same rod company and the others others are of equal quality and i try to use them all to their strengths,as well as using premium terminal tackle so I get really good performance from all of them.

I have a couple go to rods, but really none more favored than the rest.

[TNBassin']

I keep my setups simple, with no real technique specific set ups. I stick with 7" MH rods mostly. Set ups are a 7' MH Veritas micro guide rod with a Gen 3 Revo S, a Gen 3 Revo SX on a 7' MH Vendetta 2, and a Gen 3 STX that is awaiting a 7'1 MH *** Black rod. I fish open water in the big rocky dirt bowl that is Douglas Lake.

[backcast88]

My favorite setup is my finesse TX rig setup.  Mainly b/c I use it the most and have tons of success using it.

6'8" M XF BPS Carbonlite

Daiwa Aird 2500

8 lb BPS Carbon Gold Fluoro (sadly no longer made)

Usually paired with a 1/8-3/16 tungsten bullet weight and 1/0 Gamakatsu or Owner offset round bend hook.  Its deadly on Spotted Bass using a Zoom 4" Dead Ringer or lately a Big Bite Baits Squirrel Tail worm.

 

This setup is very successful on my local lakes.  This is a ~4.5 lb spot (way thicker then the picture shows) and the next picture is ~2 lbs.

 

 

2nd would have to be my squarebill/lipeless/shallow crank setup.

6'6" M M BPS Crankin Stick

BPS Extreme 6.3:1

12 lb Sunline Super Natural Mono

[wademaster1]

6'6" Pfleuger President combo has served me well for largemouth....in the rivers I tend to tote something a little smaller....

[SPEEDBEAD.]

I've got two:

 

6'8" MH custom on a Shikari black, spiral wrapped left (handiwork by Alpster) with a Chronarch 51mg.

 

8' Low Down Custom production Heavy, spiral wrapped left with a 301D Curado.

 

Hard to beat either one of those for their intended purposes.

[new2BC4bass]

Currently:

 

My 6' 10" MF Fenwick ETS/Curado 51E/8# Sufix Elite goes every time for the lighter stuff.  Cumara (older model) 7' 2" MHF/Fuego/10# Fluoro is another favorite.  Rod is listed as a Senko/Fat Ika rod, but often has a spinnerbait on it.  Pretty weedy where I normally fish.

[SissySticks]

My two custom built drop shot rods. One a 6'8" MXF G-Blanks baitcaster built with a split pistol grip handle and micro guides, with a abu garcia silver max and 10-12lb. McCoy fluoro, and the other the same blank built with a graphite tennessee tube handle and alconite guides with a Abu Garcia 702lx reel and 10lb. Sufix 832 with a 8-10lb. McCoy Fluoro leader.

[IowaHusker28]

My favorite rod is my 7'3 Veritas MH with a 7:1:1 Abu Pro Max reel with 17# fluorocarbon. I love it because of its diverse uses but I mostly throw plastics and jigs on it. When I first got it, I threw cranks, spinner baits, more less any thing I could tie on! Haha

[thehooligan]

my 6'5 cumulus with core 51.

[Felix77]

My single favorite combo is a 6'6" MH Abu Garcia spinning setup. I learned on that setup and always revert to it when the bite is tough.

[lmbfisherman]

My favorite shore fishing duo is 7'3 MH Veritas paired with a Citica G7 (20lb braid), it's a multi-purpose (spinnerbait, frog, jigs, and weighted texas rig)  stick and take my Avid Medium 6'6" now paired with a Lexa 100 6 to 1 (12lb Yo Zuri) ratio for my lighter stuff (jigs, worms, shaky head, small cranks)