What Makes a Good Jigging Rod?
We’ll just state the obvious. Fishing for walleye is just plain fun. Thrilling and fast-paced, catching walleye means an angler has to be quick-thinking when it comes to fishing this predator. That’s why we asked walleye expert, Dale Gilbert, to share his extensive walleye knowledge with us. A walleye master, Dale, has fished walleye from Arkansas to Canada and Michigan to Montana, and he doesn’t disappoint.
When it comes to having a good jigging rod, you want a fairly sensitive rod that allows you know when you have a bite. In this link, walleye expert, Dale Gilbert, explains what he looks for when choosing rod and why it pays to go for quality.
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Video Transcription
What Makes a Good Jigging Rod?
Hey folks, we're going to talk a little bit about what really makes a good jigging rod. And probably the most important thing to me with a jigging set up is basically you're getting something with a very good quality rod length. Most of these today are some sort of graphite or graphite composite but they're fairly light but they're extremely sensitive. It's like if I touch the tip of this rod, anything is just barely touching it I can feel it in here and that's probably the most important thing. In fact, I've had days where I could've swore I could feel a fish just even to swim by that.
This is six foot three inches long, you could go to a little bit longer rod, I like the six three overall, that's become my favorite. It just seems like when you get a longer rod you start to lose some of the sensitivity. Although I fished with some of the six 10 Swate rods like this one here and found that I liked it really, really well.
The Importance of a Good, Quality Reel
And the other thing that's really important and especially if you're using the fire lines like this, is to get a good quality reel that's got a really nice, smooth drag that doesn't stick. Because we've talked before about that the fire line, how there is no stress to it, then there's got to be some forgiveness somewhere. There's got to be a cushion or a margin. And when you get that fish of a lifetime on and it comes up to the boat, I can guarantee you the first thing it's going to want to do about the same time you're going to try to net it, is it's going to go the other way, right?
So when it happens, something's got to give, the rod's got to give, to give you that little bit of cushion. The drag in line, hopefully, is going to slip without sticking so again, you don't pull hooks out so that you don't end up losing that fish of a lifetime. And if you're interested in those kinds of things and you stop down to North 40 Outfitters stores and they got quite a selection of these. And I would absolutely recommend this over about anything I've ever used so thank you.
If you got any questions or need any further information, just stop by any of the North 40 Outfitters stores or check the website at north40.com. Thanks for watching and hope to see you again. Thanks.