Going back to budget?

[bigfruits]

On 10/13/2018 at 11:28 PM, Chris186 said:

Has anyone ever gone back to budget rods from higher end rods? Years ago I used all BPS extreme rods. Caught a ton of fish on them, even won tournaments on them. Then little by little I started buying more expensive rods. This past season, I noticed I actually caught more fish on my cheaper rods than my expensive ones. For example,  a few weeks ago I loaded the boat on an $79 BPS cranking stick while my Orochi XX Swingfire sat in the rod locker. It started to make me think that maybe I don't need to be buying these more expensive rods, maybe I should go back to buying budget rods. Anyone else ever experience this?

blasphemy! this thread should be locked!

 

seriously though, if you were buying better gear to catch more fish youre going about it the wrong way. 

 

sure you will feel more bottom bites and land more fish with a NRX over an Ugly Stick but the majority of the time its going to be skill that lands/hooks the fish. 

 

I have too much fun with my gear and my time is too valuable to downgrade.

[bayvalle]

On 10/30/2018 at 2:59 PM, bigfruits said:

blasphemy! this thread should be locked!

 

seriously though, if you were buying better gear to catch more fish youre going about it the wrong way. 

 

sure you will feel more bottom bites and land more fish with a NRX over an Ugly Stick but the majority of the time its going to be skill that lands/hooks the fish. 

 

I have too much fun with my gear and my time is too valuable to downgrade.

I agree. Better gear for me is more about the experience. I do feel rods good sensitive rods are more important than good reels for finesse and the reverse may be true for Cranking and topwater. Really your ability to find fish, identify what works and good technique far out ways the equipment. If money is an issue I certainly wouldn't be using it just to upgrade my rods.

[Hartwood71]

Great thread.  I love nice equipment, but success definitely comes from the wizard, not the wand.  Locating, repetition and executing are the keys.   

[Ratherbfishing]

Can't say I've moved back TO budget rods since I've never really left them.  I do have one St. Croix rod which has seen a lot of service but so have my Lightning Rods.  It is possible I would notice an improvement but I've been pretty content.

[Chris186]

It’s funny to think I started this thread 2 years ago. Since then I have switched over to all Ducketts, which I never paid more than $130 for. One of my favorite rods is the Duckett Triad I have, however there are a few that I have I don’t care for and I’m getting rid of them. The one thing I did do was switch to something much more sensitive for bottom contact, as I felt like I was lacking with the Ducketts and was questioning bites. 

[MN Fisher]

I'm all for budget equipment - get on sale, Amazon price breaks, gifts, etc. 

 

My most expensive rig 'retail' is the Fuego/Dobyns FR705cb. Retails for $230 - got the reel as a gift, got the rod during TW's Black Friday sale...my cost? $95 total.

 

[JediAmoeba]

I have bought a lot of six gill rods lately.  They are very nice for the price - they run BOGO's on their rods so you end up with 2 for about 160 dollars. 

[Bird]

I've always been a " top end " kinda guy for a very long time, anything from hiking shoes to automobile tires. 

 

For some strange reason I simply can't come off $500 for a rod or reel.

 

My top end stuff is Kastking speed Demon Pro's " have several "and I also have a few lightning rods.

[GreenPig]

It's the indian not the bow. KVD could out fish most with a cane pole. Not that that there's anything wrong with expensive, light, sensitive, great casting rod.

[roadwarrior]

Fun thread...

 

I don't think your rod & reel will have much affect on "catching". 

For me it's just about "fun".  My stuff is just more fun to fish.

 

[kayaking_kev]

This is a question I plan to solve for myself after next year and I hope to document as much as I can. But, I have only been fishing for 2 seasons now and I used a Ugly Stik GX2 + Abu Garcia Black Max for everything, even did a lot of worm fishing with it this year and I caught over 500 documented fish on video with it. In the last few months, I have purchased 12 new rods, 6 of them are Dobyns, Xtasy 755c, Xtasy 723c, Extreme 702c, Champion Glass 705cb, Champion 704sf, and a Fury 703c, along with two Shimano SLXs, a Lew's TP-1, 13 Fishing Defy Black, St Croix Panfish rod, and a Fenwick HMX.

 

So far, I have only got to fish with about half of them and it was very limited, and the places I fished has had really soft bottoms, so I can't really speak on sensitivity yet. They are definitely funner to fish and look really nice, but I'm skeptical if the performances will justify the prices. I'm sure they will be better for bottom fishing than an ugly stik, but I also paid $35 for a Lew's rod that is IM8 and seems to be really sensitive.

 

One thing I do miss about cheaper rods is being able to throw them on the ground and not worry about it they get dirty or scratched, with these expensive rods I make sure I am careful as can be and never let the rod touch the ground.

 

I think after I have fished a full season with the new rods, I will be able to solve this question for myself. I now have rods that cost from $10 to $550 and just about every price range in between and I have 2 years experience fishing with cheap rods to compare to. I might not catch more fish than this past season, but I fully expect to lose less fish when I do hook up.

[Fishes in trees]

My experience has been that mid-range rods go on close out often enough that I don't have to dabble in the true low end, budget category.  I only got a few rods that I paid full price for.   One of them - a Loomis bait casting drop shot rod, doesn't get used very often.   When I ran across a Falcon Bucco Trap Caster, it was such an improvement over what I was using to throw lipless cranks that I immediately bought it, never regretted that purchase.  It lets me throw lipless cranks a long ways AND set the hook at a distance.

[Tizi]

I have been focused on mid to higher end rods for bottom contact baits. Tatula rods are my go-to.  Treble and non-bottom contact, I am using Tatula XT rods.

[5by3]

I own a couple of high end Loomis rods (GLX and nrx) that I use exclusively for bottom contact baits, but other than that, I find myself fishing the $150-200 rods much more often. 
 

The nrx/glx rods are a dream to fish with, but I feel that there are diminishing returns after about the $200 price range.

 

Expensive rods don’t catch fish by themselves!

[dodgeguy]

On 10/13/2018 at 11:28 PM, Chris186 said:

Has anyone ever gone back to budget rods from higher end rods? Years ago I used all BPS extreme rods. Caught a ton of fish on them, even won tournaments on them. Then little by little I started buying more expensive rods. This past season, I noticed I actually caught more fish on my cheaper rods than my expensive ones. For example,  a few weeks ago I loaded the boat on an $79 BPS cranking stick while my Orochi XX Swingfire sat in the rod locker. It started to make me think that maybe I don't need to be buying these more expensive rods, maybe I should go back to buying budget rods. Anyone else ever experience this?

This is exactly why I stick with bps rods.i buy the more expensive ones but IMHO they are just as good as rods double the price.

[LCG]

You don't need expensive gear to catch fish. The thing I have learned though is that it's cheaper in the end to buy quality gear that lasts. It's a hobby and I don't mind spending some money on it, but like most people, it has to be on a reasonable budget. 

 

I actually just finished off selling some older gear and downsizing. I only ever bring two rods with me so I figure why have more stuff taking up space. One spinning and one casting, both BPS Carbonite 2.0 rods. Recently upgraded my spinning reel to a stradic fl and plan on upgrading my casting reel to a curado k this year. My goal is to balance quantity, quality, cost, and form/function. Being a minimalist at heart, this system works for me. Now if I could do the same with the drawers of soft plastics and lures I would be golden

[Poolshark]

I had a bunch of high my end rods damaged at one point and switched back to bps rods for uniformality and cost reduction. It has never effected anything regards for catching fish. Btw, old bass pro extremes were some of my favorite rods ever. Also, some the my most memorable and productive fishing days were with some of the mid grade rods. I still like my chronarchs though. 

[RB 77]

I have... in some instances. At one point I bought the very best I could afford when building my quiver up and then realized along the way for me personally it was unnecessary for some techniques. However, there are some techniques I will not fish anything but what I feel is top of the line and others where a nice mid priced range rod will do just fine. I do not fish "budget" anything (which is perfectly fine for some people IMHO), but will fish mid range to top shelf models form different brands (G Loomis, Falcon, Kistler, etc for me).

[evo2s197]

Nothing wrong with budget setups.

 

But I personally would never switch from my setups to budget, high end combos make fishing more enjoyable, less fatigued at the end of the day, more accurate casts etc.

 

When your forget about the rod and reel in your hand and your zoned in, you know you have a good setup.

 

Bottom line is you should buy the best you can afford all the time with everything.

[J-rod]

On 1/4/2020 at 11:51 AM, Fishes in trees said:

My experience has been that mid-range rods go on close out often enough that I don't have to dabble in the true low end, budget category.  I only got a few rods that I paid full price for.   One of them - a Loomis bait casting drop shot rod, doesn't get used very often.   When I ran across a Falcon Bucco Trap Caster, it was such an improvement over what I was using to throw lipless cranks that I immediately bought it, never regretted that purchase.  It lets me throw lipless cranks a long ways AND set the hook at a distance.

I don't think I have ever paid full retail price for any rod or reel in my arsenal. I upgraded most of my rods last year when the local Gander Outdoors closed its doors. I was getting Jason Mitchell Elite rods, spinning and casting, ($140 retail) for less than $40 each. These are leaps and bounds better than what I'd been using. Right place, right time. If the deal is there, and it's an actual upgrade, jump on it.

[new2BC4bass]

Blasphemy.  Just.  Plain.  Blasphemy. 

[garroyo130]

On 10/14/2018 at 11:41 AM, greentrout said:

Budget...berkley cherrywood 25$...KK looks good...some under 75$...

 

good fishing...

 

The older cherrywoods with the gold guides before they went to the black aluminum oxide guide inserts are some of the most sensitive rods Ive handled (granted, i havent megabassed). Its lightweight and sensitivity is achieved by using cheap materials that will not hold up for much time. Still, Id be willing to put one of those up against any other rod in a sensitivity contest.

 

[boostr]

All my rods are between $99 and $60, and a couple that are $40 cause they were discounted from the previous mentioned prices.

[swhit140]

On 1/2/2020 at 7:38 PM, JediAmoeba said:

I have bought a lot of six gill rods lately.  They are very nice for the price - they run BOGO's on their rods so you end up with 2 for about 160 dollars. 

Which model rod did you get??

[Ogandrews]

All of my bass rods are in the 100-180 range, with almost all of them being either dobyns Sierra’s or st Croix mojo bass. I’ve got some other st Croix’s like triumphs and eyecons, as well as a couple Shimano SLX. I really think that this price point gets you a great amount of sensitivity and weight reduction without being too heavy on the wallet. I agree that you don’t need high end gear for most moving baits but I think jerkbaits are a different story. It’s really important to have a rod that has a really fast tip to give the bait the right action but you need one light enough to load up so the fish don’t throw or bend out the hooks. Not easy to find that, st Croix makes a great one in all of their bass lines same with Shimano.

 

Bass reels I see the same way. Most of my rods have curado k’s or curado 70’s, still have a couple citicas also that are still going strong. Great quality for the money and it’s not going to give out on me after a season of fishing it hard. 
 

Musky and pike gear is a different story. I only like buying higher end musky rods because it’s so much more comfortable using a lighter st Croix legend tournament instead of using a cheaper rod weighing 12-15 ounces. Same thing with reels, I only use tranx or Calcutta’s. This kind of fishing is really hard on your gear you need reels that can take the abuse.