ice rods

[dairyman]

I'm looking for a new ice rod---------I primarily fish for crappies and was looking at the Jason Mitchell line of rods. Wondering which would be best---- the spring bobber or the meat stick rod??

[MikeH55343]

I used the GM Guide Series UltraLight for the last two season. I really liked that rod - then the tip broke. I just picked up the JM 24" Meat Stick. Will try it out for the fist time on Friday.

[mww24]

I have two st croix spring bobber rods and a thorne bros power noodle which is similar to the meat stick. I just picked up a mitchell spring rod today. They look of very high quality for the price. I bought the croix spring rods when they were the best game in town. now it seems as if everyone is catching them at lower cost. I love my power noodle. With that being said they both have their place. With my noodle rod you still have to have a pretty good sense of a bite because the real light bites don't show. My spring rods show every little thing. I would get the mitchell spring rod just because it will probably alert you to the super light bite the crappie can have better than the meat stick. I wish i'd have used my mitchell so i could compare to the croix spring rod, but it looks to be on par with that. The only downside i see is that the springs arent changeable. Good luck.

[bobbymalone]

I'm a huge fan of spring bobbers when crappie fishing using small spoons or soft plastics, there is a lot of stuff going on that you can't see with floating bobber or watching the rod tip. I looked at the JM spring bobber rod but quickly decided against it because I don't like rods that have the spring bobber permanently attached. IMO those JM rods are about as good as what you can get for a mass produced rod and a better bang for your buck than an expensive custom rod. I have JM perch rod I use for metro area dink walleye. I am much bigger fan of the JM rod than the SC one I have that the guides can somehow turn around the blank.