Which Daiwa Zillion Rod should I get? 3rd Baitcaster

[Dpaine88]

Hey there, with the American Legacy sale on the discontinued Diawa Zillion Rods at 40%, I figured why not.

My only problem is I cant decide which one!!

 

Here are my 2 current setups:

 

Dobyns Fury 734C, 7'3" HF(fishes closer to MH) with Tatula 6.4.1 reel

Mojo Bass Jerkbait 6'6"  MF  with Tatula 7.1.1 reel

 

I pretty much do a mix of banked and boat fishing, smallmouth and largemouth. All sorts of presentations

 

Any recommendations on the 3rd rod to get? Here is link to options https://www.americanlegacyfishing.com/fishing/fishing-rods/shopby/daiwa/zillion.html

[timsford]

If you fish a lot for smallmouth or use finesse tactics on a regular basis then a medium or medium light powered spinning rod would round things out nicely. If you don't use many light baits or fish crankbaits much, then the crankbait model would round out your arsenal nicely. Imho you honestly need both and if you fish hudds or other moderate sized swimbaits then I'd pick that one up too. Personally I'd probably pick up the spinning rod from the zillion line and I'd look into crankbait rods in the original tatula or tatula xt lines. The 7'2" mh graphite rod makes a great all around reaction bait rod that handles just about anything besides small balsa cranks or big deep divers.

The dobyns rod you own is the right length, power, and action to handle plastics, jigs, frogs, and single hook reaction baits like swimjigs and spinnerbaits. 

The st Croix is an excellent choice for target casts with any bait in its weight range. 6'-6'6" is the length I prefer for jerkbaits, topwaters, skipping socks and trees, and roll and sidearm casts to targets. St Croix medium power rods also have more backbone than some and can handle a lot more plastics and jigs than many other mediums.

Those two cover 80% of techniques and either the spinning rod or cranking rod will allow you to fish what few things they won't. Good luck with your decision sometimes it's hard to decide which rod to get next

[Dpaine88]

Thanks Timsford! I failed to mention that I do have a Mojo Bass St Croix 7ft MF  Spinning rod that I use for Finesse(though its hard to go back now that I have fallen in love with baitcasters).

 

The one thing I don't really fish much is crankbaits since usually I am fishing shallow water with a smaller boat or from shore where it is tough to use crankbait. 

 

Swimbait Rod looks pretty awesome. I have actually never fished one and don't know much about them but I will have to do some research and see if they make sense for the ponds that I fish!!

 

Do you think it would make sense to get a Frog rod?  I have seen comments around the forums saying that you really want a  5 power Dobyns Fury for Frogs and mine is a 4. 

[timsford]

A frog rod makes sense if you feel you need more power than your fury has for any of the frogs, jigs, or heavier baits you fish or if you fish heavy cover. I use mine for a lot of different techniques to fish baits from 1/2-2oz. 

I fish swimbaits quite a bit in ponds. My favorites are bluegill baits like the little creeper sunfish, hudd and savage gear gills, and mattlures ultimate and u2 gills. I use the tatula frog rod to fish these baits.

If you don't fish cranks much and when you do it's mostly shallow cranks, then I would just use mono on the shorter rod you already have to compensate for the fast action. And since you already have a spinning rod, I'd most likely go with the frog rod because it's more versatile than the swimbait stick

[Dpaine88]

Oh wow, so just to clarify you are using the frog rod for both frogs AND the swimbaits? Seems like a no brainer then!  Would also probably do well catching pike. 

 

What speed reel do you have on that rod?