Now that my confidence was up, I started paying more attention to the gear I was using. In this installment, I'm going to talk about fishing rods.
I'm not going to go into brands or materials. I think those are topics far too advanced for me to cover right now, and while material choice could be important to a professional, I think it's better to focus on the specs of rods.
Most of the rods I own have some words somewhere near the handle. Some say MH, UL, L, M, etc. This refers to the power of the rod. Just think of it as how much effort it takes to bend the rod. A light power rod will bend with less effort than a heavy power rod. At first, I figured more power is always best, so that's what I wanted to use. This turned out to be a poor choice.
Those letters on the side give you an idea of what sort of lure you can throw with the rod, and it's all about potential energy. When you make the casting motion, the business end of the rod is storing up energy. If you have a heavy weight on the line, you'll get a greater amount of energy stored and released when you cast. Unfortunately, I was trying to cast a lure that weighed very little with a powerful rod, so there wasn't enough resistance to make the rod bend, and my casts didn't go very far.
The rod I've been using lately is a Light power rod. I've found that it is limber enough to cast unweighted plastic baits but it is still strong enough to pull in an average sized channel catfish. At the beach I use a Heavy power rod, and in the Neuse river, I use Medium.
One company I found that makes rods I really like is Acadia Sports. They make graphite rods at a very reasonable price. Unfortunately, they're going out of business, but I have eight of their rods and I use each one of them. They may still have some left, so check them out at www.acadiasports.com. The rod at the top of this page is an Acadia Sports spinning rod.
There is a lot more to discuss than rod power, such as line, reel, weight, lures, blah blah blah. But this is about what I've learned, not about all there is to know.
I'm not going to go into brands or materials. I think those are topics far too advanced for me to cover right now, and while material choice could be important to a professional, I think it's better to focus on the specs of rods.
Most of the rods I own have some words somewhere near the handle. Some say MH, UL, L, M, etc. This refers to the power of the rod. Just think of it as how much effort it takes to bend the rod. A light power rod will bend with less effort than a heavy power rod. At first, I figured more power is always best, so that's what I wanted to use. This turned out to be a poor choice.
Those letters on the side give you an idea of what sort of lure you can throw with the rod, and it's all about potential energy. When you make the casting motion, the business end of the rod is storing up energy. If you have a heavy weight on the line, you'll get a greater amount of energy stored and released when you cast. Unfortunately, I was trying to cast a lure that weighed very little with a powerful rod, so there wasn't enough resistance to make the rod bend, and my casts didn't go very far.
The rod I've been using lately is a Light power rod. I've found that it is limber enough to cast unweighted plastic baits but it is still strong enough to pull in an average sized channel catfish. At the beach I use a Heavy power rod, and in the Neuse river, I use Medium.
One company I found that makes rods I really like is Acadia Sports. They make graphite rods at a very reasonable price. Unfortunately, they're going out of business, but I have eight of their rods and I use each one of them. They may still have some left, so check them out at www.acadiasports.com. The rod at the top of this page is an Acadia Sports spinning rod.
There is a lot more to discuss than rod power, such as line, reel, weight, lures, blah blah blah. But this is about what I've learned, not about all there is to know.
No comments:
Post a Comment