I'm looking at a couple of rods for smallmouth, rock bass, and bluegill in local rivers.  Fish are 1/2-3 lbs.  I guess certain areas could be bigger fish, but I have rods for those. (2 Lews ML rods)

 

Looking at a Duckett Crappie Slayer Light/Fast 7' or Favorite White Bird ML/Slow 7'3" or Lews Wall Marshall Speed Shooter 6'6" ML/fast.

 

1/32 - 1/8 oz finesse rigs and tubes are standard fare along with some small crank baits.  4-6 lb line. Fishing from a Kayak.

 

I really liked the Duckett.  

i have 2 rods that are rated for 1/32 lures and those are the dobyns 6.2 and 7.0 sierra trout and panfish rods and are paired with  daiwa regal 1000's with 4 and 6# mono.

 

my local river ( the housatoic in ct.) has lots of moving water and is less than 4' in depth in most spots i fish.so i use these ul's to throw out the light baits to keep them out of the rocks. i've caught some big smallies on the 7' (16-18") and its a blast ( set that drag correctly) . rods have good backbone , solid tip, fast rating  and bends like an ultra light when anything over 10" fish is on the line. the lightest mushroom jig i use 1/32 matched with a zman tube or ticklrz i'm guessing the weight to be about 1/15 in total. the 6.2 is new and only have maybe 10 fish on that , biggest  being a 14" lmb.. rods are lots of fun for me and i strongly recommend them if you can afford (figure around 150) them. these are the only 2 rods in this range i have experience with.

 

if not comfortable with a ul designation than i can recommend the following in "L" 1/16-3/8 , dobyns fury 6.6 , phenix m1 ( i have the previous generation), phenix recon and shimano curado are all great stream/river smallie rods for me and handle those 3+lb fish very well. if i might also suggest the daiwa regal 1000 paired with any of these rods its affordable (60$) , reliable and has a great drag for this price ( i've got 8).