Rods and Reels

[kt]

I thought it would be interesting to see what brands of rods and reels everyone uses and what their favorite is. I personally use a mixed bag of equipment mostly consisting of quantum reels and many different rods.

I bought a new curado for this year which i can't wait to try out. i was wondering if anyone had any advice as to what kind of rod i should get to go with the reel. I'm in college so i don't have the budget for a high priced loomis or st. croix. Any advice on rods in the midprice range would be appreciated.

thanks,

kt

[Ice Hole]

Falcon's are very good rods for the money. Personally, I like st croix's I used to use only Shimano, but I have been switchin over to Daiwa lately. They make some awesome reels.

[Bobb-o]

I have a Rapala rod with a mitchell 300X reel. the rapalas are awesome rods for their price ($25)

[shauncock]

i mostly use my berkley rod with a quantum 3000 sx reel that i bought last year when i broak my old reel but im finding alot of problems with my reel but i love my rod

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SHAUN

[Chev_trucks501]

Kt,

Well being a college student kt, it must be hard to find the $$ to get the good stuff. I would recommend that you try to anyway. I was a college kid once and well I used to buy the garbage stuff at a lot of the different stores. Thinking it was good enough. Now that I actually know what I am doing out there I only fish with certain things. My reels mainly consist of Shimano. Curado for the casters and a variance of spinning reels mainly Shimano... oh and 1 quantum. The curado is a sweet caster you will like it a lot. I have several. As far as rods go. I usually only fish with St. Croix Rods. They are not quite as expensive as the Loomis ones but they give you excellent preformance. One of the big reasons I like the St. Croix rods is because they usually have a very good backbone and a nice flexible tip. Plus they are everybit as sensitive as other rods. Some will disagree but in my testing I found that there is not much of a difference. A St. Croix Premier Series rod will run you about $90 for a good caster. Not sure on your budget but that is fairly inexpensive considering the reel you are going to put on it.
Falcon Rods are good ones too, although they have not caught on up here like they did in the South.
I hooked my buddy up with a Shimano Rod and he really likes it. It was a little too whippy for me but seemed to be snesitive enough. Well there is my 2 cents.

Good Luck

Bring on the OPEN water!

Chev

[Deitz Dittrich]

kt-

The rod to buy for that curado depends on what you want to do with it. Each of my rod reel combos serves a job. I have 2 for jig-n-pig, 2 for texas rigs, 1 for carolina rigs, 1 for jerkbaits, 1 for dropshot, 1 for topwater, one for skumfrogs... ect...I can go on.. but each of these rods have different lengths and actions, depending on what I want it to do! If I had to pick a blanket action and lenth for a rod it would probably be a 6'6" MH.

All my rods and reels are Shimano, Many Curado's, few Chronarch, Few Curado, Super Free, Few of the 3.5 Curado for cranking, all on V-Rods.

[basser]

I started using Shimano Scorpions last year,without a doubt the nicest reel for $150 I have ever used. Paired them up with Quarrow green mile rods. Best set up Ive found for me. I would definitely stick with Shimano for reels, I also use Fenwick Techna AV rods which are excellent but I keep breaking them, at $200 a pop its getting expensive,although Fenwick keeps replacing them. One thing is to pay the most you can afford, it will pay off in the long run.

[Smallie]

Man, all kinds of differnt equipment. I have to agree wiht Chev trucks if you don't have the money find it so you don't have to pay for it in the long run.

I will never buy any thing but Shimano reels I use all curados one super free. Theres lots of differnt name brands but after working in the fishing business I send many differnt kinds of reel in for warrnaty and service.

I must say Shimano is the best company to deal with for good service but the fact is I don't deal with them as much as the other top brand company's. Abu Garcia is also great for never needing a tune up except for that New EON reel low profile round reel.

There are alot of great reels on the market I just telling you what I see working with equipment every day.

Great rods for the money are Falcons, Shimano Compre and Clarus series.

G.Loomis IMX if you have the cash go for it!

[Crawlerman]

Well.. as far as Performance and Value goes I'm a fan of Abu Garcia. They are known for their heavy duty baitcasters for big game-- but they have decent (and well priced) Spinning reels. (their spincasters are a bit much.. but I stay away from that type anyways..) I only have 2 abu spinning and 1 of the "ambassaduer" type baitcasters for my river rig; but I will likely buy more next year. Far as rods go, I'm not too picky-- as long as it's Graphite composite and has ceraminc guides. I do have a few that need replacing though. Looks like a buying binge for me for some rods/reels next season. I generally spend about $30-50 on a combo-- little bit more than that for baitcaster. The reel to me is more important than the rod-- I've found some decent rods in the Bargin bin at K'mart and Gander mountain before. But I've had a few cheap reels break down on me that I'm gonna have to replace with better ones next year...

[bronzeback01]

Reel wise, I use all Quantum.The Energy series seems to be just fine for a good casting reel. I use almost every model of spinning reel Quantum makes,I love em' all!I fish all Fenwick rods, all with titanium guide systems. There's just something I like about Titanium.Fenwick makes a good lite rod, and in a wide price range. The Venture and Eagle GT models are great considering the price (around $50!)I've never had a problem with any Fenwick rods, never broken one either. If you do mannage to break one, Fenwick will replace it (in most cases).

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J.P.S.

[Rippinlip]

Just a little more to ad on.
Try the Cabelas Tourney Trail Rods
and the Bass Pro Shops Bionic Blades.
Nice rods for the price, good balance
good feel, plenty of backbone.
Stay with the Shimano reels.
They kick bass!!!!!!

[Banger]

I have the same prefrences as Smallie. I use all Shimano reels both spinning and casting, curados for casting and symetre and stradic for spining. They are all light weight and have very good drag systems on them. As for the rods, I love falcons lowrider series for the affordability and warranty not to mention the durability (have only broke one on a tie down), gloomis is the top dog if you can afford them but being in college myself I am going to have to wait a few more years to add another couple of gloomis to the collection. As with most of the guys spend what you can afford.

[USPENAMC]

I JUST BOUGHT MY FIRST BAITCASTER ITS A SHAKESPHERE I DONT KNOW WHAT KIND AND IT WAS 30 DOLLARS I DIDNT WANT TO BUY AN EXPENSIVE ONE AS MY FIRST BAITCASTER AS I KNOW ILL END UP BREAKING IT AND WRAPPING LINE ALL OVER IT LOL. I HAVE NEVER BAITCASTED HERE ARE SOME FUNNY THINGS I FOUND OUT 5 MINUTES AFTER I OPENED IT LOL. WELL ITS NOT LIKE A NORMAL PUSH BUTTON CASTER LOL YEAH I HAVE A COUPLE OF BRUISES I FIND IT KIND OF WEIRD I CAN ALREADY SEE THAT THE LINE GOES FAR WITH LITTLE EFFORT AND I SEEM TO BE PRETTY ACCURATE ALTHOUGH ITS PRETTY WEIRD TO WORK IT ANY TIPS AND POINTERS. THANKS EVERYONE I SHOULD BE READY TO FISH BY MAY IF I DONT BREAK EVERYTHING IN THE ROOM FIRST. OH JUST TO ADD ON I SHOULD HAVE A NEW ADDITION TO THE FAMILY FROM HERE TO FEB 10 WHICH IS OUR DUE DATE A FISHERMEN PARTNER. WOOOHOOOO

[Chev_trucks501]

Hey USPEN,

Congrats on the little one to come. Get him/her out early! As far as the baitcaster goes...remember to adjust the spool brake on the reel. It will help with the backlashes. As far as breaking everything try this...
Go Outside Good Luck

Chev

[USPENAMC]

Chev Trucks

Thank you , well im from south texas so for me sometimes breaking some things is better than going outside i have a question though.

how come when i cast my line seems to get tangled up in my reel lol ?

[Chev_trucks501]

Uspen,

LOL Try this, go to a place that spools line and have them get you some invisible line on there..say about 20#. You'll never even notice the line on there and you'll never get a back lash again! lol.

Good Luck. hehe

chev

[smallmouthking]

Kt, if you haven't used your curado yet I would seriously consider exchanging it and spending 30$ more on the super-free curado or the even smoother chronarch if money isn't much of an issue. I have owned curado's for years but these newer super-frees are unbelievably smooth. If you don't have a line prefernce and fish an area with lots of snags, rocks etc., you might want to give P-Line a try. The super strong version is incredibly strong.
good fishin

[Guest]

Lots of good advice here, but I couldn't resist adding my 2 cents (O.K. maybe 50 cents). The Curado SF is my favorite baitcaster, but the 5:1 Bantam also has a place. I'm planning on getting the 3.8:1 Curado Bantam to match with my G. Loomis crankbait rod (Galyan's had em for HALF price). I also picked up a Loomis flipp'n stick for HALF price at Galyan's. They were going to return it because it had a blem in the finish.

I also have an awesome Fin Nor Ahab spinning rod that again I picked up for HALF price at Cabela's. I also love my St. Croix's, Fenwick's, and my Falcon. My "house" brand rods aren't too bad and I don't whine when they break.

Galyan's is buying the older Loomis GL2's and they are selling them at a steep discount. Get the FSR904X 7'6" Heavy Mod-fast action 12-25 lb 1/4 - 1 oz GL2 flipp'n stick. I can fish any style (with practice) using the Super Free on this rod. If I had to fish a tournament with only one rig on several different bodies of water, this is what I would bring.

Be patient and don't pay full price for a high quality rod. Ask around and see if anyone has a blem in the backroom for cheap.

Hey Exude Dude, did you fish the Viking's Bassmaster classic on Tonka this past October? If so, I just want to thank you for all the free Exude floating worms you handed out after the tourney.

[Glenn_S]

Hey Exude Dude, if I tell you that your new boat is nice, will I get some free baits? LOL...

Glenn

is the water soft, yet???

[Steve Foss]

No doubt there are a ton of more refined combos out there, but I have been fishing largemouth north of Bemidji for 20 years, using two basic combos or versions thereof.

1. Ambassadeur 5500 series baitcasting reel, 6-foot to 6.5-foot medium graphite composite rod, 14-lb Trilene XL. It's the spinnerbait rod, the top-water rod, the night fishing rod, the slop rod, the medium to heavy plastics rod.

2. Shimano 2000 series spinning reel, 6-foot to 6.5-foot medium-light graphite spinning rod, 8-lb Trilene XL. It's the crankbait rod, the light plastics rod, the slip-bobber rod.

Neither of these combos costs more than $100 new. Can't tell you the hundreds (heck, thousands) of bass I've caught on them. I've got one Abu 5500C that's 22 years old and still runs like a top. Latest is a 5500 ultracast with anti-backlash feature.

Man, now I can't wait for the open water!

[This message has been edited by stfcatfish (edited 02-25-2003).]

[stephendawg]

Don't be distracted by the reel recomendations beyond that Curado in your grubby little hand. I sure love mine! Super Free's are awesome but to the average angler the difference is negligable. I own 6 Shimano reels of which my oldest is a Bantam Mag Plus 250X (18yrs) and Shimano takes great care of their customers. Only 1 pinion gear replaced on that old Mag Plus (still one of my fav's to throw) and it's seen 1000's of casts and fish. Select the rod for your price range and application and remember..That Curado will last you forever if you maintain it but a St Croix rod is no stronger under a 200# foot than a Bass Pro Shops Graphite Series ($29)and they come in many flavors too. Enjoy...........

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...if I only had more time off!...
Dawg

[Guest]

Try a Bass Pro Bionic Blade. $79 each and buy two get one free. I have several and like them. I also have a Pro Qualifier for $119 and like it even better.
Good luck fishing.

[JP Savage]

Hell boys ......Try a $9.99 glass rod and any reel that works....The bass don't give a sh##........Us fisherman want all the newest and the best.