I recently got into bass fishing and purchased two new rod and reel setups for getting started. Most of my friends are pretty hardcore and fish weekly tournaments, so I have had some excellent advice from them. I just wanted to get some outside advice on what you all would do.

The two setups I currently have are two 7' MH Duckett MMP rods equipped with Lew's Tournament Pro reels. One was originally a 6'10" MH, but decided to just swap it for another 7' MH. I consider this setup versatile for getting started with plastics, spinnerbaits and the likes.

My dilemma is getting one more setup. I am really interested in pitching and flipping jigs and maybe frogging later on when I get more comfortable and learn all the techniques. What would you all do in this situation? Maybe another setup that is versatile enough to do several things. I would thinking something along the lines of a 7'6" MH or H with a 7.1:1 Lew's Tournament Pro. The other two reels are 6.4:1.

More info. Where do you fish? What lake(s)? What cover? From boat or shore?

In reality, you can use that 7'MH for flipping and frogging, and it will work pretty well, but if you're fishing super heavy cover like punching mats etc. A flipping stick is going to help a lot more.

Also, from shore it's nice not to have to lug a flipping stick around, but on a boat its nice to have a stick you can pick up on a whim prerigged to pitch to a laydown etc.

You could use one if the 7' for flipping no it would not be the best like the one you are looking at but if I were you I would get a finesse setup. They in my mind can help you catch fish on those tough days when nothing else works. I also belive they can catch fish pretty much anytime. Fir instance a ml spinning rod with a shaky head can be deadly

Thanks for the response. I'm in Mississippi way down south. Most of the time while fishing ponds, I just stick with plastics unless practicing. I'm relative new to bass fishing so I am still learning. I have not yet started fishing the lakes with my main two friends, but from what I understand, they mostly fish shallow edges and banks. The one that does a lot of pitching and flipping usually does so with something like a T-rigged pit boss or beaver style bait or 1/2oz jigs with trailers. He did inform me to stick with 1/2oz jigs if I decided to get into it. I doubt I would be doing any heavy punching for awhile. Flipping or pitching to shallow cover and maybe up to 6-8 feet is likely what I would be using it for and perhaps some frogging as well. 1/2oz or lighter with a trailer is most likely the heaviest I would be using for now.

I use a 7'2" heavy lews magnum custom speed stick(on the rod back by the but it' says short flipping stick) and a lews tournament mb in 8.3.1 it's a great setup. Sounds like this would work well for you too. I also cast jigs with it and carliona rig with it.