FISHING RODS 101: Making the Right Choice

By Capt. Cefus McRae

Selecting a rod is all about picking the right tool for the job. And just between you and me, it can be quite confusing. Rod companies use all kinds of terminology to describe their rods—there’s light, medium light, medium, medium heavy and on and on. Then there’s the lure weight and the line weight. It’s enough to make you want to go back to the good old cane pole.

Well, let me try to break all this down into a few simple concepts that will help you make an informed decision the next time you’re in the market for a new rod.

Rod Power: First, decide what kind of fishing you’ll be doing, and what line class you will be using. If you’re bass fishing, then the line class might be as light as six pounds or as heavy as 20 pounds. If you’re tuna fishing the line class might be from 30 pounds to as much as 100 or more pounds. Then start looking at rods rated for that class of line. This rating refers to the ‘power’ of the rod and its ability to handle this strength of line. If you’re fishing in heavy cover, and need to get the fish away from the grass or rocks quickly, then you need a rod with a lot of power, or backbone. On the other hand, too much power combined with light line will either snap the line, or pull the hook from the fish. Similarly, over-power a rod that’s rated for 8 pounds with 30-pound test line, and then try to handle a huge fish and you’re asking for trouble. This is all too common these days with the superlines and braids. Folks will use 30-pound braid on a rod rated for 8-pound line, and wonder why their rod broke. And of course, the reverse is true. Put lighter than rated line on a rod, crank down the drag, and you can potentially break the line when you begin to put pressure on a fish.

Lure Weight: Now that you’ve decided what you’re fishing for and the line rating it will take to bring it to the boat…the next part of the equation is lure weight. And that means what weight lure you will be using. Most of the time this is rated in ounces. A light spinning rod for bream or mountain trout could be rated at one-eighth to one-quarter ounce lures. While a surf casting rod might be rated for three-quarter to two ounce lures. And a bottom fishing rod for grouper could be rated at 4 ounces to 10 ounces. This also relates somewhat to the ‘power’ of the rod and its ability to handle or cast that weight of lure. Now it gets a little confusing when you’re using live bait, and so another factor comes into play and that’s Rod Action.
You will notice light, medium, heavy and a number of incremental classifications in between categorize most rods. For some manufacturers this relates to both the ‘power’ of the rod —that is how much strength or backbone it has toward the lower end of the rod and sometime it includes the ‘flex’ of the rod. In other words, where the rod has the most bend, compared to where the stiffer ‘muscle’ of the rod is. And these designations work for both freshwater and saltwater rods. You can have a medium power rod rated for bass that’s capable of 17 pound line. You can also have a medium power rated rod for grouper that’s rated at 30 pound line. It all relates to what the rod was built to handle.

Now we get to the flex of the rod, commonly called the ‘action’. “Action” refers to the amount of flex or bend in the rod. Does the most bend take place in the top one-third to one-quarter of the rod, or does it bend almost all the way to the fore grip. These actions are designated as Fast, Medium or Slow. Again, very confusing.

But here are a couple guidelines to help sort through the nomenclature. Fast rods have most of their bend in the upper third of the blank. And from that point, all the way down to the grip, the blank is very stiff. These rods are great for casting plastic worms, jigs or topwater plugs. A fast tip rod loads up quickly on the cast, giving you distance, accuracy and the power to sling a pretty heavy lure. The responsive tip lets you really work a lure like a topwater plug, and the stiffer backbone gives you the ability to drive the hook in the fish’s mouth. Faster action rods will typically be made from high tech composites and are usually lighter compared to slower action rods.

On the other hand, a slower action rod will bend almost all the way to the fore grip. Typically, slower action rods are all fiberglass construction, or they are a fiberglass/graphite composite. The fiberglass delivers a lot of flex, plus power, and they are usually less expensive than composite rods. From a practical perspective, a slow action rod is beneficial when you’re fishing a crankbait and you need to ‘feel’ the bait running through the water, plus you need the flex at the strike to allow the fish to take the lure and run with it. Driving a hook into a tarpon’s mouth with a slow action rod is hard to do. It simply has too much flex. Most crappie rods are slow action because the rod ‘gives’ a little—preventing you from yanking the hook through their paper-thin mouths. If you are bottom fishing with circle hooks and live bait, slow action rods allow the bait to move a little more freely and lets the game fish get the entire bait in their mouth before feeling too much resistance from the rod itself. And if you are pitching live bait, this is where the slower action really shines. It’s more forgiving. The flex of a slow action rod has much less tendency to snap the minnow or shrimp off the hook when you cast it. If you’ve ever slung a live bait off the hook during the cast, take a look at the rod action. Dollars to donuts says it’s got a fast tip.

So there you have it. Power—the line class the rod was meant to handle. Weight—the weight of the lure you’re casting. And Action—the flex of the rod to get the most efficient casts and use of the type of lure or bait you’re using. These are not absolutes, in fact there’s a lot of variables that come into play, including personal preference, but at least it’s a start to get you headed in the right direction. If you’re still confused, as many of us are, then I’d suggest spending a little bit of time with a knowledgeable pro at your local tackle store. Or better yet, get with a custom rod builder and let them construct a rod that exactly meets your purpose. Tell them how you plan to use the rod, and they can design one that does the job.

Getting the fish to bite is one thing. Getting them to the boat can be a whole different can of worms. It’s all about having the right tool for the job.

Tight lines and calm seas,

Capt. Cefus McRae & Buck, The Wonder Dog

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