Hey, just curious when everyone’s favorite brand is. Are you brand loyal when it comes to looking for a particular rod or just go with whatever is best for that application? I am a little OCD about keeping things the same but it’s hard to do that when you’re looking for a particular rod for a particular lure/application.  I love st croix, but Dobyns, megabass, and shimano exprides are hard to resist. 

St. Croix for plastics, Abu Garcia for crankbaits.

Id say probably St. Croix for bottom contact baits and Falcon for most treble hooked baits

Megabass

Shimano

Daiwa

Lews

St. Croix

Fenwick

Falcon

Kistler

ALX

iRod

Dobyns

 

Don't call me a fanboy! There's so many companies that put out great product.I don't like pigeon-holing myself by being brand loyal. Now what it comes to reels, I'm pretty much Shimano, Daiwa and Lews. With a few Pfluegers and an Abu thrown in. 

All G. Loomis rods (minus my custom swimbait rods) / Shimano reels for me.

Daiwa is my favorite.

I was devoted to St. Croix, I like to keep the same brand for my rods so the actions are known to me.  Different brands act different. 
But.........now I'm slowly converting to MegaBass. 

 

All my rods are either Loomis (mostly) or St. Croix (Avid, i have a premier musky rod) with all shimano reels. 

I dont have a favorite brand. My favorite rod is first gen Quantum Smoke. The most rods I own from one brand goes to St Croix. The brand I like the least, Kistler. 

Reels all shimano, rods are mostly Okuma TCS for reaction baits and Shimano Expride for bottom contact. 

 

But G Loomis and Megabass rods definitely have my interest in the future

All of my rods are Dobyns, and all my reels are Lew's

No brand loyalty here. Have a bunch of different ones that I like and use all the time. Lots of good companies out there. 

I'm pretty budget oriented, so, 13 Fate Chromes and Daiwa Tatula XTs carry all my Daiwa reels.

For Casting...Daiwa, Megabass, and Abu.

For deep trolling... Daiwa

For light trolling ...Fenwick and Daiwa

Spinning..Daiwa, Fenwick, Abu

Crappie...B&M, OZARK, Fenwick, and BPS

 

I use mostly Daiwa reels for everything casting, but I do have an Abu REVO SX that I use for vertical jigging and 1 Pflueger Supreme XT that I use for throwing 1oz. top-water stuff with. The spinning and crappie rigs are all have Pflueger reels and the regular spinning rigs are Pfueger and except for 1 Daiwa.

I have nothing against any rod company but I've been buying nothing but St. Croix for the last several years. I use mostly spinning rods and I like how I can handle hard fighting smallmouth even on the ML rods. Also, because I visit the St. Croix store a couple times a year if I have any warranty/repair issues, I take them in and can get a replacement on the spot, no shipping involved. 

7 minutes ago, NOC 1 said:

For Casting...Daiwa, Megabass, and Abu.

For deep trolling... Daiwa

For light trolling ...Fenwick and Daiwa

Spinning..Daiwa, Fenwick, Abu

Crappie...B&M, OZARK, Fenwick, and BPS

 

I use mostly Daiwa reels for everything casting, but I do have an Abu REVO SX that I use for vertical jigging and 1 Pflueger Supreme XT that I use for throwing 1oz. top-water stuff with. The spinning and crappie rigs are all have Pflueger reels and the regular spinning rigs are Pfueger and except for 1 Daiwa.

How many rods do you have??! 

 

5 minutes ago, Scott F said:

I have nothing against any rod company but I've been buying nothing but St. Croix for the last several years. I use mostly spinning rods and I like how I can handle hard fighting smallmouth even on the ML rods. Also, because I visit the St. Croix store a couple times a year if I have any warranty/repair issues, I take them in and can get a replacement on the spot, no shipping involved. 

That would be really cool to live close to there...would be more st croix devoted as well if that were me. 

So far it has been Dobyns for me, I really like the Customer Service. I own 8 of their rods from every series except the Sierra and Colt. I have a Lew's, St.Croix, Fenwick and 13 Fishing rod, but like Dobyns better. 

 

I would love to try a Megabass Destroyer, Shimano Expride, G.Loomis NRX & Conquest, Kistler Zbone & H3 and some Daiwa rods though.

 

As far as reels, I have 5 Shimano, 5 Daiwa, 3 Abu Garcia, 1 Lew's, and 1 13 Fishing.

lews rods, cant beat them for the price! and recently purchased a denali attax that im really enjoying.

I've never been brand loyal. My current favourites are Shimano and Lews

I have not found any brand that fits all of my fishing needs.

Dobyns and St Croix fill out most of my arsenal.

There are a couple Kastking speed demon pro's and Abu Garcia's in the mix.

I’m a pretty big st croix fanboy. When looking for a new rod, I always start there unless I’m completely convinced I’m getting better value/performance elsewhere. I don’t have a huge rod and reel arsenal but they’re all Croixs except for one Fenwick ETW. When it comes to reels it’s definitely Shimano for casting and for spinning I split it between Shimano and pflueger. 

40 minutes ago, clemsondds said:

How many rods do you have??! 

That's a good question. About 40 I think. But some of them see little use like the down rigger trolling stuff. and the big 9ft steel-head river rods.

Many of them are specialized, like the 4 crappie rigs 9,10,11,12 ft. ML and L rods and a couple of 8' Light rods that I only use for trying to catch early Walleye feeding on shallow rip-rap on the river. I have a 6'6" H-XF that I use for little other than vertical jigging 1oz. lead spoons for Striped bass.

 

I could cut the number I have down to maybe 10-12 and get 90% of my fishing done.

 

My sons and I get together a couple time a year at various places for a week of fishing, so after a while I ended up with enough gear to pretty much go anywhere to fish for anything.

1 hour ago, Team9nine said:

No brand loyalty here. Have a bunch of different ones that I like and use all the time. Lots of good companies out there. 

Same here.  I spread my money around.  Picking out one or two favorite brands would be too hard.  I do think the Fenwick Smallmouth and Daiwa OG Tatula rods are a lot of rod for the money.  I own a lot of different brands, but some brands are represented by only one rod.  Ex. Witch Doctor, Dobyns, St. Croix, Kistler, Megabass, Lew's, Shimano, etc.  It isn't that I didn't like the rod I got, but that I found used ones at a good price.  New...many are too expensive for me.  Would love to add an Expride or two to my arsenal.  Can't find one I can afford.  I've been collecting for 11 years.

 

As 9 said...lots of good companies out there.

Brand loyalty will only hold you back. Do what you can to experiment with various brands. We see brand loyalty with fishing gear, vehicles, politics, sports teams... sometimes the wisest thing to do is realize that your favorite brands aren't always great. Be loyal to yourself. 

 

But I tend to favor Shimano reels.

I have both Kastking and Dobyns rods. All my reels are now Kastking.