It’s hard pressed to call a long rod a new product, since tournament anglers in the Midwest have been using them for years. Shawn Hariham of CNY CUSTOM RODS www.cnycustomrods.com is a hard-core tourney angler and designs his rods at his Finger Lakes location in Montair Falls, NY on fabled Catherine Creek. Prior to Lake Ontario salmonids explosion, Catherine was home and still features a prized rainbow run from Seneca Lake, home of the National Lake Trout Derby (www.lake troutderby.com).
Strains of Finger Lakes rainbows are steelhead originally stocked by legendary trout pioneer Seth Green. CNY CUSTOM RODS facebook page https://www.facebook.com/CNYCustomRods has all the information you need to know about long rodding but we utilized excerpts of Shawn’s technique below. Call, visit or view CNY Custom Rod at Shawn‘s Catherine Valley Outfitters location, and bring your waders and pole.
Shawn’s Tips
When using a long rod you don’t use it in the shanty, they are designed for faster fishing while hole hopping, or fishing the shallows. Guys that use long rods stand on the ice instead of sitting down. When using a long rod it gets you back away from the hole when fishing early ice or shallow water, as you can easily spook the fish by standing over the hole or projecting your shadow.
By using a long rod when fishing 10’ of water or less, in one motion you can lift your arm up and lift the fish right up out of the hole without having to reel your line in. This makes for a very fast retrieval, and almost just as fast you can have your line and jig right back down the hole back on the school. Instead of having to wait for your line to unspool off your reel, you already have that length of line out for the depth that you were fishing.
If you decide you want to work a line of holes that have been drilled in a certain depth, you can lift the rod tip up and move to the next hole and drop your jig right back down, again, without having to reel your line in. Also, if you have several holes drilled around you, you can stand in place and just turn your body and fish a hole to your left or right, or directly behind you.
This gives you a better advantage as just walking on the ice in shallow water spooking fish.
For the guys that tournament fish, time is money. And the faster they can hook a fish, get that fish on the ice and the jig back down the hole, the faster they can fish an area and move on. It can make a huge difference when tournament fishing.
Using a rod with the line running through them gives you a greater advantage when fishing out of the shack on windy days. With the line protected inside the rod blank, you aren’t losing any vibration when the fish bites, to the wind.
With a long rod, you aren’t typically reeling the line in, therefore, you shouldn’t have to worry about getting water inside the rod until the end of the day when you’re headed back in.
When using our long rods as intended, you’re sure to have a great day on the ice catching fish.
