JD, I mainly fish for salmon, trout and steelhead. I’ve never really had any desire to fish bass fish and have thought of them as kind of a boring fish. As I get older, however, I’m really finding myself wanting to go after the bucketmouths more often. I only live about half an hour from Clearlake and want to get good at bass fishing. I’m not worrying about figuring it out, I just want some help with rod selection for different techniques. My question is this…which of my steelhead and salmon rods will work best for crankbaits, spinnerbaits, swimbaits, jig fishing, and fishing plastics with different rigs, etc? I know most of my rods are long, but oh well, I’ll make due. Thanks very much for your help!
–Kevin
Kevin,
Without going into every rod you own, let’s keep it simple. Yes, most of your steelie sticks are going to be too long for normal bassing, but if you’re trying to save a little $$ by not buying a bunch of new stuff, you can get by with some of your current gear.
For crankbaits, use any Kwikfish or Hotshotting rods you may have — ones with a soft tip and some good backbone. For flipping jigs, stout back-bouncing rods should do the trick. Heavy salmon back-bouncers will also probably suffice for topwater frogging and tossing big swimbaits.
For finesse tactics like drop-shotting, use a light spinning rod.
Hope that helps!
–JD
If you’re into tossing spinners and spoons for salmon and steelhead, the Lamiglas X10 MTC may just be your rod.
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Emergency action has been taken by the federal Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to close the ocean sport fishery between Horse Mountain and Point Arena on April 1, 2008.
In addition, emergency action was taken to close the April 5 sportfishing openers in San Francisco and Monterey port areas (south of Point Arena to the U.S.-Mexico Border).
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Yeehaw! It’s time for another round of our Name that Fish! contest. Again, the rules are simple: In the comments section at the end of the story, give us your best guess as to what this guy is. The first correct answer wins a pack of C.A.L. jerkbaits from DOA Lures.
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Okay, so maybe this fish didn’t actually eat Cleveland, but it’s damn near big enough to do so. Jimmy Davis caught it, as he says, “Somewhere along the West Coast,” on a pink and chartreuse Action Tail Steelhead Worm dangled under a float. After the quick grip-n-grin, the big beast was left to go about his business.
The behemoth wasn’t the only toad from the trip….
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I saw this one down by the river a while back. Kinda says it all, doesn’t it?
JD — I fish a river that is +90% hatchery steelhead. The last few years I have started backtrolling sand shrimp using Brad’s divers. What rod would you recomment for this? Also how do you like your drag when backtrolling bait or when you are backtrolling plug for steelhead?
–Eric T.
Hey Eric, depending on how big your steelies are, the GLoomis HSR 941 is a dandy stick. I’ve also had lots of fun with smaller spring-run fish on the HSR 9000.
I run a really light drag setting because I’m using braid most of the time when pulling plugs or bait divers. Since braided line doesn’t stretch, the light drag builds in some “give” that helps keep the hooks from pulling free on the takedown.
Has Hodgman has married quality with vaule with its Lakestream Lite felt soled wading shoe?
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