smalljaw67

There will be a lot of days fish won't touch a jig, but if you stick with it you'll be rewarded with larger than average fish even though a dink will sometimes try its luck eating one. I make my jigs and I have a bunch of different head styles and weights as I rather throw a jig than a worm but sometimes you got to fish the worm. If you want your confidence to grow even more, grab a Siebert Outdoors Finesse jig and a Conquistador Finesse Pro craw trailer and just give it a few small hops along the bottom near a laydown or stump, you'll be surprised at the number if fish that combination will catch.

I have the 7' medium power, fast action Fenwick Aetos spinning rod, it is very close to a medium light in power and is a finesse technique rod, it is not made as an all purpose rod and it is a fast action but it isn't as fast as other rods in the series. I'm guessing that the 7' is the one they designated for drop shot and shaky head, the rod is more versatile than a drop shot specific rod because the tip section isn't super soft so you can fish shaky heads no problem. The claim to fame is that the rod is very light and it is ridiculously sensitive, the thing with a two piece rod is it can change it a bit, take a look at the specs on the 6'6" model, the 2 piece has a little different specs as if the rod were a little more powerful and it is because the rod has a short length and the fact they have to have an extended area with a thicker wall where the rod pieces join together and it makes a shorter rod a little more powerful. If I was getting an all purpose spinning rod in a 2 piece in this series, it would be the 6'6", and the reason is the 7' model is more of a finesse stick, it can handle a little larger weights but it is better used with shaky heads and drop shots.

The SE Tourney trail is on sale now and is less expensive than the pro guide. The SE is like an upgraded pro guide, not bad rods at all, I have a Tourney trail spinning rod I got for my wife 12 or 14 years ago and it still looks new, they hold up and the performance level is better than you would expect.

There are a lot of great options at that price point, I would suggest looking at a site that has most brands and see which rods appeal to you in that price range and then ask about specific rods. The way your question is now will make it tough as you'll get everyone's favorite rod at that price point and it will be just like looking at a Bass Pro catalog without pictures. Tackle Warehouse has pictures and you'll be able to see what you like because at that price, most any rod you get is going to be better than what you have now.

I make my own and finesse jig to me means a lot of things. I make a finesse jig similar to an Eakins jig from 1/8oz up to 7/16oz, then I make small 1/16oz and 3/32oz with small size 2 and size 1 hooks with tiny trailers, so those are all finesse jigs to me and they all get used at different times and places. The Eakins type jig is one I use a lot, I'll use it with a craw type trailer around spots I wouldn't use a larger profile jig. Don't look at weights for finesse jigs as a lot or 3/8oz and 7/16oz which is just a tad under 1/2oz. Finesse jigs usually have a crop top skirt where the strands are cut short instead of doubled over as a regular bass jig, this is done for a few reasons, one is it greats a slimmer profile and the top strands have the look of a craw tail, and it also grabs water slowing the jig just a little bit. I like them when I know I'm in an area with a lot of craws and when the water is slightly stained and there is more than a foot of visibility, a great place to throw a finesse jig like the Eakins is along bare banks where there is some chunk rock or where the bank transitions from rock to clay or vise-versa. Make a cast and let it hit bottom and just slow drag it or give it a pop or two and let it sit to make it look like a craw scurrying, you may not think any fish are near these banks but the truth is if there are rocks than there are craws and that means fish will be near too. Boat docks are another good spot for these type jig, give them a shot, you'll end up liking them I'm sure.

I like the Xcalibur one knockers, they seem to draw larger than average fish for me and they work all year. If I have to go slow, nothing beats the Cotton Cordell Super spot 1/4oz, it can be reeled slower than any other bait and still vibrate and make noise, and it isn't the cheap ones you see in a blister pack at wally world, these are in a box, both are Cordell but they are not the same bait.

The subwalk is like a slow sinking jerkbait, you use the same cadence as a spook but it is done with the bait underwater. There are a lot of angers that have problems with these, one guy I fish with can walk a spook really well but can get the subwalk to work right unless he closes his eyes. What happens is you end up pulling the bait instaed of twitching with some slack in the line, we think the line has to be tight as it is under water but you keep slack just like a spook and it will work just fine. You also need to remember that the side to side movements aren't going to be as wide as a spook so take that into consideration as well.

Having used that rod I'd say it depends on where you are throwing the jigs. If you are fishing like a 3/8oz Eakins jig or Arky style and dragging along bottom around sparse cover, yeah, you could do that but I woulbn't fish in moderate cover with that size jig and trailer and not a 1/2oz jig and trailer. While St. Croix rods do fish heavier than their power suggest, it is not a full power under, a medium Avid is not a MH from another company, maybe 1/2 power over, so the Medium Avid would fish like a light medium heavy. I've owned St. Croix rods in the past and I have uses a lot of them as a lot of guys I fished with use them, especially the river smallmouth anglers. For the price you are getting to rod at, I'd say get it and use it as a light duty jig rod, and fishing weightless Senkos.

While wobble heads can be used a number of different ways, the main way to use them is like a crankbait, put your favorite plastic on the hook and slow roll it along bottom.

Shaky heads can be round (my favorite), football, or different shapes all together. Most will have a keeper like a screw lock or some sort of pin or barb that will hold the soft plastic bait so the hook can be inserted into the bait in a weedless or Texas style fashion. There are other shaky heads like the VMC Rugby head, and the Strike King Tour grade that don't have a screw or anything coming out of the head to hold the bait, instead the Strike King has a lead barb and the Rugby head has an offset shank allowing a bait to be rigged Texas style weedless. The shaky head is basically a jig worm, in the north it was common to fish finesse worms on a jig head and the worms were threaded on the jig and fished with an exposed hook, just like fishing a grub on a jig head. Well guys began rigged the jig worm weedless so they could fish it in cover but it was hard to rig it weedless on a jig head and still have the worm stay straight so eventually anglers and lure companies got together and developed ways to rig the worm on the head so it was weedless yet still would hang straight, and the name shaky head was applied because the most popular way to fish it was to drag it a little bit and stop then shake it in place. Wobble heads or swing jigs are completely different, if you go to TW and look under terminal tackle, you'll see an entire section for shaky head jigs.

They are the same but different and I no it doesn't make sense. A Texas rig consist of a hook, a bullet weight and a soft plastic, the weight can be left free to slide, or it can be pegged. A shaky head is a jig, it is a hook with a fixed weight molded on and then rigged weedless but can also be rigged with the hook exposed as well. That is the big difference, the weight, one can be left slide up and down the line while the other can't. The other thing is Texas rigs are normally done with heavy hooks and 1/4oz or more of weight being used, a shaky head is mostly finesse with smaller worms on light heads with light or medium wire hooks. Now, you can use a light weight, and hook with a finesse worm in a Texas rig or you can use a split shot rig or mojo rig which is a finesse Carolina rig. Finally, a Carolina rig is a Texas rigged worm with a fixed weight above the hook and bait and just about any rig that consist of a weedless plastic without a weed guard is going to be rigged Texas style, so a shaky head is a jig that you rig a worm on in a weedless fashion which is basically Texas style but not really a Texas rig. I guess you can say a Texas rig is a soft plastic bait rigged on the hook weedless with a bullet weight on the line that can be loose or pegged in place. Texas style just refers to how a soft plastic bait is attached to the hook, and a shaky head is a small jig in which a finesse bait is attached to the jig Texas style. I hope that made sense.

I'm probably in the minority but I fish thsticks both ways but I use a weightless Texas rig 90% of the time. The reason is I do better with a weightless Texas rig and miss fewer fish. I get more action on the wacky rig but that is only because the bluegill seem to like that, they will nip a little at the Texas rig but they really go to town on a wacky rigged worm to the point I don't use it much.

You'll get the vibration on a glass rod but it won't be so extreme but having the bait vibrate like that is a good thing. The reason why I like it is it lets me know the bait is running right and with that much vibration, any change in it is noticeable right away so it helps with bite detection so I look at it as a good thing.

Yeah, the post on the Lews HM85 sale is one I can't thank you enough for!!! Every time I use that rod I like it more and more, the sensitivity is great but the guide train really makes it a wonderful rod to cast with. So if my spinning rod is like that I imagine your cranking rods are really good.

I have 3 spinnerbait rods and they are my favorite bait, my custom is 6' MH-F with cherry wood split grips I had done in the late 90s. That rod was made short for slinging 1/2oz spinnerbaits under overhanging trees for tournament fishing and the wood grips kept my hands from cramping up. My "normal" everyday spinnerbait rods are a 6'6" MH-F and a 7'MH-F, as you can already see, I prefer MH rods with a fast action. I use that power and action because 99% of my spinnerbait fishing is in and around cover, I use my 6'6" for 1/2oz and under that I roll cast to specific targets, the 7' gets used when I'm paralleling long stretches of bank and rip rap, I get more casting distance and I'm able to use a larger bait with it. I have used a moderate and moderate fast actions for spinnerbaits and they are ok for covering large areas of open water but trying to free a bait from weeds with that kind of action is kind of hard so I stick with what works for me.

As I told you, the HMG is head and shoulders above the HMX and I'm a Fenwick fan. What is your rod budget and what are you looking for specifically when it comes to length, power, and action? That will help a lot as often times there are sales that not all know about but it is usually a specific model, and as for certain rods, there may be a good one in the line of rods that generally aren't very good. I have an old Quantum Super Light spinning rod, I paid $230 as I got it when they first came out, it is a 6'6" medium power with a fast action and if it came out again today I'd gladly pay the same price knowing what it is. On the other hand, the 7' medium power, fast action spinning rod is horrible, it is very tip heavy to the point it is hard to fish with so if you asked me about those rods in general, I could tell you both good and bad as I don't know what you're looking at model wise, so if you let me in to your budget and specific rod specs, we would be able to find you something. Or are you not really looking, you just saw this rod with the Fenwick name for $65 and thought it might be a good deal to take advantage of while not really looking for a rod in the first place?

The Falcon Bucoo BCS 4-17, Falcon calls this rod the spin cranker and my buddy loves his for the smaller RC2 series 1 crankbaits. The rod has a lure rating of 1/4oz to 1/2oz but it will throw the 1/8oz cranks without a problem and he regularly throws a Jackall Bling 55 on it with no problems. He said he can thorw 1/2oz baits with no problem and he can even use a 5/8oz bait but he has to be a little careful not to whip cast it, he said that he feels 5/8oz is about the limit of the rod but 1/2oz and under it is great. This Falcon is made for cranking and it has a moderate action and for cranks that is what you want, the only reason fast action work with spinning rods is because most spinning rods are softer in action than their casting counterparts but anytime a crankbait is involved you typically want a moderate action and the Falcon Bucoo spin cranker is designed just for crankbaits.

My favorite crankbait happens to be the square bill too and you have to use it to get confidence. The baits are designed to fish fast, with todays high speed reels the bait is now easier to use than ever which is why it is so popular. The square bill is the spinnerbait of cranks, you send it to areas of cover and bring it through fast and the bait deflecting off of cover is what will cause the strike 90% of the time. Tie one of your baits on and throw it, but do so when conditions are right, basically the same type of conditions that make a spinnerbait good, and that is a light breeze or some wind to great a ripple on the surface of the water, overcast skies, and low light situations. Once you get bit the light will go off and you'll understand it, I remember the moment I understood the bait, it was in the late 80s and I was using a Bagley Balsa B2 that I got as a present from a friend I met in trade school years earlier. I really did not understand the way the bait was supposed to be fished, I just knew you made a cast and reeled it in, and on one cast I got it, I ended up hitting my friend's line on the back cast and it screwed me up, the bait only went 20 feet but I got a backlash. I got the backlash out after about 10 minutes of messing with it but there was a light breeze blowing and my bait drifted another 20 feet. So I carefully reeled up the slack until I got to the bait and I began reeling fast to get the bait back to make a good cast, well as I was reeling it, the bait bounced off of a rock and it was a split second later that a 14" smallmouth smacked it, that is when I got the "AH-HA" moment, after that I was making casts around stumps and deadfalls and areas of chunk rock and out of the 9 fish I caught on it that day, 7 bit right after I banged it into a rock, and 1 was when I ripped it off of a limb from a deadfall and the other happened ripping it off of some eel grass. Think of it as the 4 wheel drive of crankbaits and if you don't think about getting hung up, you'll be surprised at how well they come through cover.

Save your money and go with an HMG or wait for 4th of July sale and get it. There are some good options at that price that I know are on clearance but it depends on the length, power and action of the rod you want. FFO has a 6'9" medium light Abu Garcia Verdict spinning rod for $60, that is a decent buy for you and will be better than the HMX but you didn't list what model you want so it is hard to give you any more information other than you can do better.

Go to American Legacy fishing, and get a Team Lews HM85 6'6" medium, moderate cranking rod, they normally were $200 but they are clearing them out for $79.99. It isn't a cheap rod and the reason I'm suggesting this rod is that it is a medium but the way Lews rate their rods it more of a medium heavy with perfect specs on what you are looking to buy.

I disagree with you on the rod requirements for fishing a ned rig, I actually like an extra fast or even a fast action with a medium light to medium power. We've been doing this a long time in the waters I fish, there are some slight differences but for the most part it is the same deal with 1/16oz to 1/8oz jig heads with size #2 hooks and dead sticking 2.5" to 3" soft plastics. Most of the time we use 6lb mono and now a lot like fluorocarbon, but on occasion we use 1/32oz head with a size #4 hook with 4lb line. A medium light spinning rod has a lot of flex to it, and so does a medium power as well, even with an extra fast or fast action it has forgiveness and because of that it lets me get a good hook with just a flick of the wrist. Drop shot rods that are extra fast typically have an extremely soft tip that flexes with the slightest movement in order to see the strike without the fish feeling resistance, then all you have to do is reel down and because the rod is into the backbone at that point, the hook sets itself. When you take a spinning rod with the lower power but a stiffer action what you get isn't a visual cue, but a vibration, you typically feel the light bite better and a simple wrist snap will get the hook to penetrate and the rod will flex during the fight to keep the fish pinned. With a parabolic action on a medium or medium light spinning rod, you have to hope the fish inhaled the bait and didn't bite down because you are right, with the lower power spinning you have no choice but to reel set and if a good bass has the bait tight, that rod isn't going to get the hook to move, what will happen is the fish will feel it and spit it. As I said before, we've been fishing this type of set up a long time and I personally, have used a lot of different rods and actions for it and a medium light, fast or extra fast is probably the best set up for it, I like a medium power, extra fast action as it allows me to fish a little heavier and it gives me more control if I hook a large fish. Now, just because I disagree with your choice doesn't make me right, you might have had a different experience using different equipment, I just think the way I use the rig, my choice of equipment is better, and this is why you have different drop shot rods and different shaky head rods as we all have different styles and what works for one may not work for others.

It depends on the river, on the river I fish, a buzz frog or other toad type bait works well as it is more of a buzzbait. Hollow frogs work well in certain areas, and the areas they produce are sections of slower moving water. I find that on my river, wake baits, spooks, and poppers work better but I have used frogs in certain areas where there is a lot of eel grass and water willow.

As others have said, roll casting spinnerbaits is the way to go. I like shorter rods when using spinnerbaits for this very reason, but I'll try to help you with your situation. You can do a few things to remedy the situation, the first is to use a roll cast, the second thing would be to add brake, maybe 2 brakes on will help, the third thing is line, fluorocarbon or mono as braid is very limp and on a high overhand cast it won't have enough stiffness to combat to helicopter action of the bait. I don't know what size bait you are throwing but you may want to try something a little heavier, a 1/2oz bait will fair a little better than a 3/8oz or 1/4oz.

Go find a Quantum Smoke 7' MH-F, the new models are fine as they are the same blank. My buddy cuss me out all the time over that rod, he hates Quantum with a passion but he had to get one after using mine. I also have a shorter rod I like for spinnerbaits but the Smoke handles like a shorter rod and has a lot of feel, I highly recommend that for spinnerbait fishing.

I hope I don't get beat up but I'm going to say something and some will get mad. Rod defects show up quickly, if a rod tip snapped after using it for 2 years, it wasn't a defect, it was user error. What kind of problems do you see occur with age? About the only thing you will get is guide rings popping out or a reel seat or butt cap coming loose but blank defects will happen within the first outing or two. Every brand will have issues, some of the rods may get damaged in shipping or if they were on a display rack someone might have put a stress crack or nick in the blank or maybe you dropped it on the deck of the boat or on the ground and the blank was nicked, No matter what happens to the blank, it will break in short order, so saying the warranty ran out and the rods snapped just means you are doing something wrong and it took that long for it to break. High sticking is something that almost everyone has done, the thing is how much you do it and if you are aware you are doing it, normally if you are aware of that habit, and it does become a habit, you won't do it much and you may get away with high sticking a few times. If you aren't aware of it, you too will get away with it once, or maybe ten times but eventually you will do it one to many times and a post will get made on a web site about brand X being horrible as the rod snapped after using it for 2 seasons. I don't mean this to be bad or scolding anyone as we all make mistakes and we are all free to form an opinion but if your rod broke by snapping near the tip and it took two years, you , or someone you let use the rod recently, either nicked the blank by accident or you were high sticking one too many times and it is ok, we all do it. There is a Flukemaster video in which he is guilty of high sticking, see if you can find it, if you know what high sticking looks like you will find it quick and a hint on where to look, experienced anglers usussally high stick by accident while landing a fish, those who don't have a ton of experience, or don't know will also do it by landing fish but they do it a lot when they get snagged. To summarize, if you snapped a rod after using it for more than a year, it is more than likely you did something to cause it to break and it could have been a simple nick that happened as you put the rod away or perhaps you dropped it on the deck and the black hit the side of the boat hard enough to cause a nick. I just think we need to understand that rods don't break from defect very much, it does happen but when it does it happens within the first few outings, not 2 years down the road.