Swest18x

So following up on my post, I gave the 10'6 casting rod a shot but still snagged and lost two cranks on the first trip, one of them being a brand new Megabass Sonic Side which had just hooked a real nice fish. I went ahead and made a couple lure retrievers for the next trip, it saved me one crank then next snag I lost the bait and the retriever in the rocks. Same old story...crankbaiting rip rap from shore is just always a risky proposition so back to other baits or my canoe for now. That 10'6 medium was pretty heavy too! On the other hand, I'm still very impressed with my Okuma SST 9'6 medium light for both paddle tails and spybaits from shore. It's actually taken over that duty from rods I own that cost three times or more, the extra length when making parallel casts is worth the difference. I tried a 10'6 medium light and that was a bit too long, 9'6 seems to be a good compromise for length.

I spend a lot of time shore fishing riprap on a canal - literally miles of it. I've had good luck on the same body of water trolling a lipless where I'm ticking the rocks 5 or 6 feet down. But to get to that sweep spot from shore and stay there retrieving parallel to the bank, requires a much longer rod so last fall I added a 9'6 Okuma SST rod (spinning) to my arsenal. Very first cast with it I caught an 18" smallie on a spybait, and I can say after spending a few months with it this spring, it sure is a nice spybait rod even if it wasn't designed for it! All of this got me thinking about cranking. Until now I simply don't from shore because retrieving into those rocks it's a snag every 10 minutes. But if I can keep the entire cast parallel to shore on the retrieve, different story. You can check out my other post on this same topic under tackle, but I decided to give this a serious try and I just ordered a 10'6 medium casting rod rated heavy enough to handle small to medium cranks. 10'6! Sounds crazy, but that puts my rod tip out over the water exactly where it needs to be. Anyone ever cast with a setup that long on a casting reel with accuracy? My 9'6 medium light is spinning and is pretty accurate, I've yet to try casting on anything over 7'3.

I'll check out these recommendations but keep in mind the rods I'm using to reach out far enough when I'm shore fishing to run parallel to the bank aren't traditional bass crankers and are pretty whippy due to their length - they won't handle a typical crank very well. Anyone ever try modifying a regular shad rap 5 by squaring off the lip?

Here's the situation: I'm bank fishing rip rap for smallmouth, making long casts parallel to the bank with a long 9'6 ml rod, trying to keep the crank in the sweet spot about four to 6 feet deep ticking the rocks. I use a lot of techniques on this fishery, this is just one but it requires a small enough crankbait to match the rod. A 2" "shallow shad rap 5" is what I'm using now but despite being rated 3-6 foot it's running on the low side of that range with straight fluorocarbon. I need a good deflecting squarebill about that same size that runs a tad deeper (the bill on the regular shad 5 looks like it will get hung up). Any suggestions?

Thanks for all the great information. I have a couple saltwater JDM rods I bought on recommendation from a user here, not for this particular application but I was really pleased with the quality so I know I could find something going that route eventually. In the meantime I just wanted to test out my idea so I went to the local Dicks store looking for a Lamiglas and came across an Okuma SST 9'6 ML Mod Fast rated 1/4 to 1/2. It felt better than the Lamiglas in hand, not sure if it's a steelhead rod or what but for 99 bucks I decided to try it out. So this afternoon I went out, sunny calm clear water, and very first cast with it an 18" smallmouth ate the spybait! That's a trophy fish on this fishery, they max out right about there, how's that for luck? Anyways, I fished a couple hours and apart from being a little heavy I gotta say I'm very pleased with that rod for launching spybaits. It also fought the smallie very well, lots of give in the first third or so to keep her pinned. Kind of reminds me of a longer version of my ALX McSmalls, but the extra two feet keep me off the rocks in deeper water on parallel casts. We'll see how it works out long term, but thanks again.

That makes sense. I suspect Duo intended the same thing because the front of the bait where you tie on is so thick I occasionally bend out snap rings trying to get them on.

What do you guys use? I'm currently throwing a duo 80.

Could someone explain the difference between side drift, drift float spinner, and drift float models of the x11?

Thanks for the responses. Noodlish might be better if I'm throwing spybaits. I know there's a JDM rod out there that's perfect for this application but it's a lot of time sifting through the internet. A jig rod might be too stiff for spybaits but would work ok for paddletails. I'll probably buy a cheaper steelhead rod but if anyone finds an exact salt model 9'6 to ten or so let me know.

So 3/8 spybaits would be about the max weight for me Nine foot minimum, spinning, I have a 7'8 that isn't near along enough.

When I shore fish it's on a canal with rip rap. I had an idea to try something different: I'm looking for a nine or ten foot pole that would work for spybaits, finesse swimbaits so that standing on the rocks I can fish parallel to the bank just off the rocks in slightly deeper water for the full length of the cast. I don't even know where to start looking, I'm guessing this would be a salt water rod?

If water temps are still warm (upper 60s) but you have a cool morning (40s) do you find the air temp negatively impacts the topwater bite?

I got up to Brant Lake for half a day. Thanks for the heads up on the lily pads, but I still managed to run right into a patch in the dark! I got untangled, ran to the north end of the lake before sun up, not much luck there on topwater just a couple dinks. It started to rain, I lost a few tails on my dropshot, finesse swim baits on the way back came up empty too. I was probably fishing too fast, I have a tendency to do that on a new lake. I also should have frogged more but didn't have a good combo with me. After that I went down to Lake Luzerne and had one monster bite on a free rig that got away. Thanks for the help but seems to be a pattern with me, I never catch good fish on vacation!

I'm braid to leader on most everything, love Daiwas, but all of my future reels will be Shimano because of the Twing. My topwater combo is a Daiwa, it casts a mile but I'm sick of keeping the leader at just such a length with mono which ALWAYS interferes with the Twing, even down to 8lb. I tie a blood knot and no I'm not learning another knot. I really don't get how this isn't a complaint with more customers, thanks to original poster for bringing it up. BTW for the above reasons I have a virtually unused zillion HD I'd like to get rid of if anyone is interested.

Thanks, I wasn't sure how strong the current is in the Hudson and one of the locals said there's a lot of jet ski traffic. I'll probably head up to Brant tomorrow early morning, hoping for some topwater action.