Hey guys, I picked up a few St. Croix Rage rods from Cabela's not too long ago.  They were on SUPER clearance, about $40 each.. I couldn't pass them up.  

Two of which are 7'11" heavy fast and the other two are 7'8" medium heavy moderate.      

What kind of reels should I pair these with and what kind of lures should I use?  I have a large assortment of retrieve speeds from 5.4 to 7.5.  I've never had rods of this length and just wanted to know if that changed anything except the casting distance.

 

Thanks in advance!

Put the 5:4 or a. 6:0 on the MHM and use it for treble hook baits like cranks, jerkbaits & topwater.  Put the 7:5  on the HF and use it for single hook applications like bottom contact baits, swim bait paddle tails & swim jigs. You could also use it for frogs & pitching/flipping. 

The longer heavy fast rods could be used for pitching and flipping, punching, swimbaits, and deep water ledge fishing with spoons, worms, spinnerbaits, jigs, Carolina rigs, and other single hook stuff. I'd pair one with my highest speed reel for flipping, pitching, and bottom contact, and the other with a 6 something to 1 ratio for swimbaits, big spinnerbaits, and moving baits. The mh moderate rods I would pair one with a low gear reel for fishing big deep cranks, and the other with a 6 something gear for fishing shallow, mid, and lipless cranks. Unless you have a rod for that, and then I'd just put another 5 gear reel and have 2 deep cranking setups

Awesome!  Thanks guys.

I'll be sure to set em up and wet a line asap.  I'll let ya know how it goes.

Probably going with a spinnerbait and pitchin' with the hf, then cranking and lipless with the mhm.  I'm still in shock at the price.  More than $120 off.

 

 

I have a patriarch on mine. Love it.