7'1" HF Casting Rod Question

[ib_of_the_damned]

I have had for quite some time, a first gen 7'1 HF-*** Black paired with a 7.3:1 Tatula 100. I rarely use it... I initially got it as a jig rod, but lately I have been throwing my jigs on a MH multipurpose setup. Can you guys suggest some good uses for it so that I can start throwing it more? Thanks.

[RichF]

Heavy jigs, lol.  That's what I use mine for. 

[fishballer06]

Should work for frogging too.

[Chris at Tech]

Small swimbaits

[Poolshark]

That rod will work well for almost any app that involves heavy cover. Pads, fallen trees, docks, etc...I'd be using it to throw small swimbaits like big EZ, frogs, pitch my heavier jigs and my favorite technique, fishing big, oversized worms. That is a useful rod. 

[thebillsman]

Frogs, swimbaits, big jig and trailer combinations..

[CTBassin860]

Another vote for frogging and light flipping.

[fishnkamp]

If that specs the same as a newer one, than you are talking about a 7'1" heavy power fast action rod. That roughly fits the description of my Dobyns Champion 705C- 3/8 to 1 1/2 ounce lures. Your rod specs for 12 to 20 pound test. Mine specs 12 to 25 pound test.

 

My Dobyns rod has a suggested list of lures as follows"  frogs, carolina rigs, texas rigs, and heavy jigs.   It also suggests using it to pitch with.  I use mine to flip and pitch, as well as throw frogs. Sometimes you have to understand that the manufacturer may not suggest a technique for a specific rod.  Dobyns did not suggest my rod for flipping.

Instead they have suggested using the 735 for pitching, flipping and small swimbaits.  I can do all of that with my 705C. They have the same lure weight specs and similar tapered blanks.

I chose the shorter rod to fit in my boats' rod locker.  I suggest you take your rod out and begin testing it with lots of lures that weigh between 1/2 ounce and 1 ounce.

I bet it would be terrific with a 5/8, 3/4 or 1 ounce football jig fished deep like they do while ledge fishing on the Tennessee River.

 

The reason you may like the feel of your jigs on the other rod may have more to do with the weight of your jigs matching that other rods specs better.  You may be like most anglers and fish 3/8, 1/2 and 5/8 ounce jigs most of the time. It is normal to have a rod that matches lighter jigs and one that matches best with heavier  offerings.  A 1 ounce jig with a typical beaver style trailer or a 3/4 ounce worm weight and a 10 inch worm weighs quite a bit and presents a big bulky meal to a fish sitting on a deep drop. That heavy weight is often needed to stay in contact with a steep dropping underwater breaks.

 

That is a nice combo and deserves to be in use.  In fact it should be a great combo to use in the next few weeks, as bass transition up and down the breaks coming and going to spawn areas. Remember you can throw out deep and work a bait up a break just the same as down a break, and you need to keep a bait in front of a fish, most of his food does not sneak up on him from behind. LOL

Maybe park you boat in say 10 fow. Cast shallow first, then turn yourself around in the boat and fish out deep till you find where they are or are coming from.  Try casting into 15 feet then 20 and so on till you get bit.  Doing this you may fall in love with that rod and reel combo. It will be like buying a new one all over again.

 

   

[ib_of_the_damned]

1 hour ago, fishnkamp said:

If that specs the same as a newer one, than you are talking about a 7'1" heavy power fast action rod. That roughly fits the description of my Dobyns Champion 705C- 3/8 to 1 1/2 ounce lures. Your rod specs for 12 to 20 pound test. Mine specs 12 to 25 pound test.

 

My Dobyns rod has a suggested list of lures as follows"  frogs, carolina rigs, texas rigs, and heavy jigs.   It also suggests using it to pitch with.  I use mine to flip and pitch, as well as throw frogs. Sometimes you have to understand that the manufacturer may not suggest a technique for a specific rod.  Dobyns did not suggest my rod for flipping.

Instead they have suggested using the 735 for pitching, flipping ands small swimbaits.  I can do all of that with my 705C. They have the same lure weight specs and similar tapered blanks.

I chose the shorter rod to fit in my boats' rod locker.  I suggest you take your rod out and begin testing it with lots of lures that weigh between 1/2 ounce and 1 ounce.

I bet it would be terrific with a 5/8, 3/4 or 1 ounce football jig fished deep like they do while ledge fishing on the Tennessee River.

 

The reason you may like the feel of your jigs on the other rod may have more to do with the weight of your jigs matching that other rods specs better.  You may be like most anglers and fish 3/8 1/2 and 5/8 ounce jigs most of the time. It is normal to have a rod that matches lighter jigs and one that matches best with heavier  offerings.  A 1 ounce jig with a typical beaver style trailer or a 3/4 ounce worm weight and a 10 inch worm weighs quite a bit and presents a big bulky meal to a fish sitting on a deep drop. That heavy weight is often needed to stay in contact with a steep dropping underwater breaks.

 

That is a nice combo and deserves to be in use.  In fact it should be a great combo to use in the next few weeks, as bass transition up and down the breaks coming and going to spawn areas. Remember you can throw out deep and work a bait up a break just the same as down a break, and you need to keep a bait in front of a fish, most of his food does not sneak up on him from behind. LOL

Maybe park you boat in say 10 fow. Cast shallow first, then turn yourself around and fish out deep till you find where they are or are coming from.  Try casting into 15 feet then 20 and so on till you get bit.  Doing this you may fall in love with that rod and reel combo. It will be like buying a new one all over again.

 

   

Thanks for the detailed advice. Unfortunately, I am bound to the shore (no boat, and relegated to bank fishing city park lakes) but I definitely will try the big soft plastics, small swimbaits, and (buy) heavier jigs. The soft plastics and jigs are not my strong suit. I have better luck at these city lakes with lipless cranks, drop shot (4.5 Roboworms/Yum Warning Shot), and smaller craw/creatures (EX: Baby Rage Tail Craws, Big Bite Baits Fightin' Frogs, Baby Brush Hogs). I am willing to go biteless for a few trips and use heavier weights and bigger plastics to try and figure out the capabilities of this rod. 

[fishnkamp]

Hey if that is your bass world let me ask a few questions. Most of these bait selections are for the opposite end of the spectrum, but work all across the country no matter what waters my wife and I fish.  I hope you already have a good sensitive spinning rod because it really helps with these baits. We both fish some 6 foot G loomis  classic series Spin Jig rods( GL2, GL3 and IMX) one pair is light action 1/16 to 5/16 and the other is 1/8 to 3/8.  The 6 footers are left over from days gone by when a 6'6 was max on the boat do to space.  Anyway any good 6' to 7 foot highly sensitive spinning rod will do.

The first bait is 5 inch grubs. We prefer Kalins. Try smoke with salt and pepper flake, watermelon with red flake and bluegill.  To explain how much my wife loves to fish these I always had some smoke/salt & pepper with red flake on our boat. She started using them out on one of the trips to a Tennessee Lake. We ran through the single pack I had owned for like 10 years. I now own ALL of the inventory that existed from every warehouse in the entire US.  This included all of the Kalins Uncle Josh had in inventory!! I believe I own close to 335 still. It is a discontinued color and yes I love my wife!

We like to pair this bait up with Bass Pro Shops Perfect Finesse Worm jigheads. Just match the size hook up with the bait. I usually only buy them in 1/8 and 1/4 and I do not care what color the worm weight part is. 

 

Do you fish any Reaction Innovation Skinny Dippers? These are available in a Little Dipper, a Skinn Dipper and the largest size. I like the little and skinny dipper size.  They fish well on lightly weighted belly weighted swimbait hook and the heavier swimbait jig heads like Picasso sells. They look like a hook with a fish head shaped lead on it.  Try 3/8 and 1/2 in these.

Our best color in most waters are White Trash, Houdini, and Sexy Shad but blue pearl and green money shot work at times too. With these paddle tail swimbaits the trick is to cast them out, let them sink a bit then start to swim them back occasionally letting them stop. They have a nasty flutter when you kill them. I then twitch em and then start my swim again. 

These two baits seem to end up on the deck and account for some fish almost all of the time.  I adjust the color by the water conditions.

 

[smalljaw67]

Jig rod for sure, it would also be a good rod for swing jigs.

[ib_of_the_damned]

9 hours ago, fishnkamp said:

Hey if that is your bass world let me ask a few questions. Most of these bait selections are for the opposite end of the spectrum, but work all across the country no matter what waters my wife and I fish.  I hope you already have a good sensitive spinning rod because it really helps with these baits. We both fish some 6 foot G loomis  classic series Spin Jig rods( GL2, GL3 and IMX) one pair is light action 1/16 to 5/16 and the other is 1/8 to 3/8.  The 6 footers are left over from days gone by when a 6'6 was max on the boat do to space.  Anyway any good 6' to 7 foot highly sensitive spinning rod will do.

The first bait is 5 inch grubs. We prefer Kalins. Try smoke with salt and pepper flake, watermelon with red flake and bluegill.  To explain how much my wife loves to fish these I always had some smoke/salt & pepper with red flake on our boat. She started using them out on one of the trips to a Tennessee Lake. We ran through the single pack I had owned for like 10 years. I now own ALL of the inventory that existed from every warehouse in the entire US.  This included all of the Kalins Uncle Josh had in inventory!! I believe I own close to 335 still. It is a discontinued color and yes I love my wife!

We like to pair this bait up with Bass Pro Shops Perfect Finesse Worm jigheads. Just match the size hook up with the bait. I usually only buy them in 1/8 and 1/4 and I do not care what color the worm weight part is. 

 

Do you fish any Reaction Innovation Skinny Dippers? These are available in a Little Dipper, a Skinn Dipper and the largest size. I like the little and skinny dipper size.  They fish well on lightly weighted belly weighted swimbait hook and the heavier swimbait jig heads like Picasso sells. They look like a hook with a fish head shaped lead on it.  Try 3/8 and 1/2 in these.

Our best color in most waters are White Trash, Houdini, and Sexy Shad but blue pearl and green money shot work at times too. With these paddle tail swimbaits the trick is to cast them out, let them sink a bit then start to swim them back occasionally letting them stop. They have a nasty flutter when you kill them. I then twitch em and then start my swim again. 

These two baits seem to end up on the deck and account for some fish almost all of the time.  I adjust the color by the water conditions.

 

I have a Shimano Clarus M Drop Shot Rod and a Blackout ML Spinning rod that I use for drop shot and finesse tactics. I also have a quite a few technique specific rods for jerk/ripbaits (Berlkey E-Motion 6'9" MF), cranks/lipless (Phenix Maxim 6'10" MHF), big/small swimbaits (Defy Black 8' H, iRod Fred's Magic Stick 7'5") , and multipurpose rods. I just don't use the 7'1" HF rod much and want to figure out what I can throw with it in my bodies of water. I know everyone says downsize, downsize, downsize... but everyone that I see bass fishing where I fish are throwing smaller stuff, that's why I want to try the complete opposite and go big. 

[Jaderose]

I need a good froggin rod.....send it to me!

[ib_of_the_damned]

5 hours ago, Jaderose said:

I need a good froggin rod.....send it to me!

Yeah right... They don't make the model I have anymore. I prefer the split grip over the newer full cork grips that 13 uses now...