Rod and Reels

[kwaldeier]

I'm trying to get all my Rods and reels set up for summer. I'm having a hard time. Off the top of my head i have swim jigs, regular jigs, bladed jigs, Shaky head, frog, buzzbait and senko. Trying to stay away from 7 Rods but what would you guys suggest? I have 1 spinning rod for shaky. 2 m/h and 1 heavy... 

[Dens228]

You don't say how many you are willing to deal with, other that less than seven. If I were carrying six I'd go:

2 M/Mod for cranks/topwater/weightless plastics

3 MH/Fast for jigs/bigger cranks/spinnerbaits/t-rigs/misc

1 H/Fast for frogging/punching/bigger baits

[RoLo]

 

I'd suggest using an Owner Welded Snap, 

to toggle between your buzzbait and frog.

 

Roger

[scaleface]

Most of the time I carry a dedicated worm/jig rod , dedicated frog //toad rod , dedicated crankbait rod ,  buzzbait spinnerbait rod that will work for a lot of other baits and a 7 foot med action all around rod .Throw in a spinning combo and I'm pretty well covered .

[kwaldeier]

5 minutes ago, RoLo said:

 

I'd suggest using an Owner Welded Snap, 

to toggle between your buzzbait and frog.

 

Roger

Would that affect the action or weedlessness of the baits? I could almost get away with 3 rods

[RoLo]

 

It won't have any negative affect on action (many believe it helps),

but there's a chance the snap may pick up a weed.

 

Roger

[plawren53202]

1 hour ago, kwaldeier said:

I'm trying to get all my Rods and reels set up for summer. I'm having a hard time. Off the top of my head i have swim jigs, regular jigs, bladed jigs, Shaky head, frog, buzzbait and senko. Trying to stay away from 7 Rods but what would you guys suggest? I have 1 spinning rod for shaky. 2 m/h and 1 heavy... 

Boat or bank? I'm mainly limited to bank fishing, mainly highly pressured public spots with lots of dinks and not many sizeable fish. Obviously don't want to carry 6 or 7 rods so I have gone with a jack of all trades approach. 

 

3 rods, 2 spinning and 1 baitcaster (reflects the slant toward dink city). M/F spinning (Dobyns Fury, Shimano Sahara, 15# Sufix 832 w/8 lb. Sufix Advance copolymer leader) for shaky heads, weightless flukes, weightless creature baits, lighter Texas rigged baits (like worms with 1/8 oz. bullet); even did pretty well the other night throwing a smaller Rebel Pop R popper (caught several). 

 

ML/F spinning (Daiwa Aird-X, Daiwa Regal LT, 10# Sufix 832 w/6 lb. Sufix Advance leader) for weightless wacky worm, Ned rig, weightless TX rigged 4" Yum Dingers, and some creek smallie baits like BPS Hellgrammite or tubes on 1/16 oz. jig heads.

 

MH/F baitcaster (Dobyns Fury, Lews Tournament MP, 14# Sufix Advance copolymer) for all the heavier stuff. Whopper Ploppers, KVD 1.5s and Red Eye Shads, 1/4 oz. TX rigged baits, 3/8 oz. chatterbaits, spinnerbaits. Was even throwing SK 5XDs, heavy Carolina rigged Ol' Monsters and 1/2 oz. wobble heads at the lake last week. I realize it's not the "perfect" rod for some of these applications but it covers them pretty well. 

 

If I were to add a rod to this lineup it would probably be a H/F baitcaster. Although my current MH/F handles treble hook baits like the 1.5s and Whopper Plopper pretty well, I wouldn't mind adding a M/Moderate baitcaster into the mix as well. But as long as I'm mainly bank fishing, there's no way I'm going more than 3 rods.

[Dens228]

2 hours ago, kwaldeier said:

Would that affect the action or weedlessness of the baits? I could almost get away with 3 rods

It won't affect the action.  But where I fish I quickly learned a snap on a frog amounted to a lot of weeds being dragged along. 

[Heartland]

1 hour ago, Dens228 said:

It won't affect the action.  But where I fish I quickly learned a snap on a frog amounted to a lot of weeds being dragged along. 

Maybe I missed Roger but I think he may have been talking about adding a split ring and not a snap swivel.  I agree a snap swivel is more likely than not to catch a bunch of junk during the retrieve that would make the fishing experience far less enjoyable.  The snap ring does not suffer the same problem, and as mentioned by Roger some feel it helps increase action on the bait.  My own personal experience is that a snap ring may improve action slightly for  the person just starting out with fishing and walking a frog or while they are gaining the skills to manage slack line effectively a person more skilled and adept with frog fishing will not see the same gains.

[kwaldeier]

I meant snap swivel of some kind to be clear lol

[Heartland]

1 hour ago, kwaldeier said:

I meant snap swivel of some kind to be clear lol

 

Sorry to put words in your mouth.   I would not use snap swivels in the moss, algae and mill foil I commonly fish frogs in, just a point for them to collect loose material.

[Scott F]

2 hours ago, Heartland said:

.....The snap ring does not suffer the same problem, and as mentioned by Roger some feel it helps increase action on the bait.  My own personal experience is that a snap ring may improve action slightly......

I’ve never heard of a snap ring before. Is that some sort of hybrid of a split ring and a snap?

[Heartland]

1 minute ago, Scott F said:

I’ve never heard of a snap ring before. Is that some sort of hybrid of a split ring and a snap?

I assumed that it was just another name for the split ring.

[DitchPanda]

11 hours ago, kwaldeier said:

I'm trying to get all my Rods and reels set up for summer. I'm having a hard time. Off the top of my head i have swim jigs, regular jigs, bladed jigs, Shaky head, frog, buzzbait and senko. Trying to stay away from 7 Rods but what would you guys suggest? I have 1 spinning rod for shaky. 2 m/h and 1 heavy... 

Sounds to me like your covered. Med hvy can do buzzbait,senko,swim jig,regular jig and bladed jig. Heavy for frog. Spinning for shaky...could also use spinning for wacky senko. It's nice to have a lot of specialty rods to really get into techniques...but if you gave me 2 medhvy fast 7ft baitcasters and 1 medfast 7ft spinning rod I could do almost everything I need besides maybe some cranking applications. Even some of that could be rectified with line and a looser drag.

[kwaldeier]

14 hours ago, DitchPanda said:

Sounds to me like your covered. Med hvy can do buzzbait,senko,swim jig,regular jig and bladed jig. Heavy for frog. Spinning for shaky...could also use spinning for wacky senko. It's nice to have a lot of specialty rods to really get into techniques...but if you gave me 2 medhvy fast 7ft baitcasters and 1 medfast 7ft spinning rod I could do almost everything I need besides maybe some cranking applications. Even some of that could be rectified with line and a looser drag.

I finally took a look at what I had - 

-7 foot medium spinning rod

-7-foot medium-heavy baitcaster with floro

-7-ft 1 medium-heavy with 40lb braid

-7-foot heavy with 10lb braid

-7 ft 3 heavy with 15lb fluro

[new2BC4bass]

 

[DitchPanda]

8 hours ago, kwaldeier said:

I finally took a look at what I had - 

-7 foot medium spinning rod

-7-foot medium-heavy baitcaster with floro

-7-ft 1 medium-heavy with 40lb braid

-7-foot heavy with 10lb braid

-7 ft 3 heavy with 15lb fluro

10lb braid on a heavy? Need to need that up to at least 40 or 50 in my opinion. Also id probably step up to 20lb on the other heavy.

[kwaldeier]

8 hours ago, DitchPanda said:

10lb braid on a heavy? Need to need that up to at least 40 or 50 in my opinion. Also id probably step up to 20lb on the other heavy.

I swore one of my braids was for senko but it shouldn't be a heavy ?