I’ve seen this topic come up in certain threads and wanted to explore it further. For a while I’ve thought that I needed the most sensitive rod for jigs, Texas rigs, senkos and the like. 
 

I keep the line over my index finger, so I get feedback on bottom composition and strikes that way, but I also combine that information with what I feel in my hand through the rod. 
 

I use a dobyns champion extreme 745 and it’s very sensitive in my opinion, but I can’t help but wonder how much more sensitive other rods like the NRX, the conquest, the Daiwa steez ags etc are. 
 

I also can’t help but wonder if “upgrading” to a more sensitive rod would help me detect more bites. 
 

All that said, how much do you think sensitivity matters? Would it be foolish of me to chase sensitivity and buy a more sensitive rod than what I have?

30 years ago I preached the importance of rod sensitivity as loud as anyone ever has.   Today,  I’m convinced it was all in my head.  Detecting bites is a skill you learn.  You cannot buy it.

For bottom contact it is everything

Sensitivity matters most with bottom contact rods. There comes a point of diminishing returns though. I say buy the best you can easily afford.

Bottom contact finesse fishing is arguably the situation in which I would want the most sensitivity in a rod in my arsenal.

 

I believe that braided line helps accomplish this, as it has no stretch and helps detect bites more easily.

You will all kinds of recommendations stating the higher the price the better the feedback sensitivity. 
The OP is using his index finger to feel line movements, no rod has better sensitivity.

The overall rod/reel balance, light weight along with high rod material modulus come into play. The rods guide train components and placement to reduce line drag and enhance casting are a big factor.

Todays reel seats with opened blank contact helps.

You can get all you need for under $300 for a good bottom contact rod today.

Customer service and warranty are important. 
The only factor that counts is how the feels to you!

Tom

I'd say we're all just a little bit different in this one.

Just about any decent quality stick can get the job done for me.

And that doesn't mean super high end IMO either.

However I do believe that there are 2 more elements to this

at least for me, that help to improve confidence that I can detect most bites.

(I'll never get them all)

One is having balance tackle; rod, reel, line & lure.

I'm not over the top with this but it's a part of my preparation for sure.

The other is, well, experience. 

Experience on the water, in the conditions I'm faced with and of course,

the specific tackle I'm using. 

An example would be sliding a bait along the bottom in flat calm water vs 

rock'in & rolling in 2 footers with a 15-20 kts wind. 

A $700 wand will probably not make or break that second deal.

Fish Hard

A-Jay

5 hours ago, Tennessee Boy said:

Detecting bites is a skill you learn.  You cannot buy it.

 

C'est Fini 😉

 

Sensitive has 4 elements: Line, rod, hands, & brain.

 

The absolute most essential element is the brain, interpretation of what's going on with our lure.

The more bites you get, the easier they are to detect.

When I bought my first NRX , I believe that was in 2012, I thought they were ground breaking. 

These days the margin has narrowed to the point that any $250 or so rod will be as good as they were back then.

Now ,if you just want a NRX or another high end rod by all means get one. You only live once , but don't expect it to equal more fish in the boat.

it's all in your head.....lol. seriously though for me balance of tackle is more important than any rod can give me.

If you are not using braid, the rod is not that important.  Braid is the single most important element in sensitivity/feeling the bite.  With braid, the rod becomes more important, action-power-design-modulus-etc.

8 hours ago, Catt said:

Sensitive has 4 elements: Line, rod, hands, & brain.

Yep….what he said.

46 minutes ago, MickD said:

Braid is the single most important element in sensitivity/feeling the bite

 

Until you get slack in your line, then ya got nuthin.

I do a lot of shaky fishing.  I tried several of my rods of various manufacturers and wasn’t really satisfied.  I was dow at Ark Rods spring sale and picked up a rod to try.  It turned out to be better than the ones I was using.  
 

I had a local rod builder repair a rod and talked to him about this.  He had me bring the rod to his shop along with the reel that I used.  He gave it a thorough look and said he could make me a better one.  He did.  It is extremely sensitive.  I liked it so well that I had another one made with the same components.  
 

Maybe it is sensitivity or confidence.  I don’t know but I am not going to change.

12 hours ago, Catt said:

 

C'est Fini 😉

 

Sensitive has 4 elements: Line, rod, hands, & brain.

 

The absolute most essential element is the brain, interpretation of what's going on with our lure.

 

I agree with Catt and @Tennessee Boy. I also agree with @Columbia Craw about getting more bites makes bites easier to detect.

 

However, you all know I get a LOT of bites and there are still times I'm left wondering. Whereas a lure ticking weeds might fool a newcomer and no longer fools me, when it feels like my lure is no longer being retrieved through water, but something of slightly higher viscosity, that can leave me wondering and sometimes I'm slow to sweep set.

 

Then there are the times when the angle of your line relative to where you cast and your rod tip isn't right. There's no thump, no tick, no increase in pressure, but your lure is off just a little, location-wise.

 

Those are two examples of times I suspect a hit, but I'm nearly certain that we all get hits we miss. I learned that lesson early when I was retrieving a lure in a farm pond parallel to the shore and a bass bolted out of the weeds, inhaled my lure, ejected my lure, and I felt nothing. I'm assuming that something similar has happened thousands of times since.

The Champion is a great rod. 

23 hours ago, woolleyfooley said:

All that said, how much do you think sensitivity matters? Would it be foolish of me to chase sensitivity and buy a more sensitive rod than what I have?

I chose to fish with rods that cost $50....

I still catch bass.... I fish ned rigs on spinning rods, and Texas rigs and jigs on casting rods.

I dont use braid because retying leaders on a kayak is a nuisance, i use hybrid line.

To me buying a rod for sensitivity matters as much as lifetime oil changes for an electric car, because for the small fraction of its price you could buy tungsten weights and braid.... Those will help quite alot if you really want to feel the bottom.

 

I truly dont believe a rod that costs $300-500 or more will cause world peace.

But time on the water, experience, braided line and tungsten weights, and knowing where you are fishing! And where the bass are. Now that, that will help you catch more bass.

 

I bought some nice rods and few years ago, from Dobyns, Lews, St Croix. They have that extra sensitivity. Ranging from $110-275. Well guess what, i realized the reason i wasnt feeling bites was because i wasnt where the fish were. Personally if you are fishing from a boat or kayak id spend that money on a fish finder, i know they dont guarantee bass but youll learn where you are fishing and where their cover on the bottom is.

 

However if moneys on the line (tournaments), or you just have the money and think its worth it Dobyns and St Croix have some really good rods out there now, theres a few from Daiwa and Falcon too. But youll have to understand even if you have the most sensitive rod ever made, thats only going to do so much.

8 hours ago, Catt said:

Until you get slack in your line, then ya got nuthin.

Less than nuthin with other lines.  Of course you can't feel anything with a slack line. 

On 11/3/2024 at 4:14 PM, WRB said:

The OP is using his index finger to feel line movements, no rod has better sensitivity.

You can get all you need for under $300 for a good bottom contact rod today.

 

On 11/3/2024 at 9:00 PM, Catt said:

Sensitive has 4 elements: Line, rod, hands, & brain.

The absolute most essential element is the brain, interpretation of what's going on with our lure.

 

On 11/3/2024 at 4:21 PM, A-Jay said:

I'd say we're all just a little bit different in this one.

Just about any decent quality stick can get the job done for me.

One is having balance tackle; rod, reel, line & lure.

 

I think these excerpts from three of our astute members pretty much sums up my thoughts on this.  I will add that @A-Jay's statement that "any decent quality stick can get the job done" and @WRB's statement that "You can get all you need for under $300" say a lot though.  In other words, the vast majority of us who have bass fished for many years tend to buy sticks that meet a certain minimum level of sensitivity and quality.  When I am on the water I want all the elements involved to be in my favor.

 

As for @woolleyfooley's Champion Extreme rod, I think that you have plenty of sensitivity to get the job done.

For me sensitivity is very important.  But a rod is just a transmitter.  It does not feel anything.  The angler does.  What you get with a more sensitive rod is a better transmission of contacts between the lure and what's under water:  the weeds, the rocks, the wood, the sand, the muck and hopefully the fish.  A more sensitive rod will help you if you can tell the difference.  

On another level, bite detection ( not sensitivity ) is somewhat different.  Lots more involved here: sight, sound, even instinct.

     Wow, do I weigh in or not.  I think todays rod's graphite rods from a good manufacturer are plenty sensitive to detect bites. Bite detection is a learned skill. I look at it this way. Did I reel or move that lure into something or did it feel like something alive "hit" it. If you want to learn bite detection you have to use either a soft plastic (worm or your favorite creature bait) or a jig.  You'll learn to feel that tick, thump or mushy nothingness that indicates a fish has inhaled your bait. Sometimes it is just a feeling that the bait got heavy or the line is getting tight. Put in some serious time with either of the above and your ability to detect bites will greatly increase. The bigger fish will sometimes be the hardest to detect because of their ability to suck a bait into their mouth without moving. Sometines your line will just start moving off without feeling anything or other times it will just be a "light tick" and a heavy feeling. Set the hook! Swing/sweeps are free.

     I have to add my .02 in on the under lying line debate in this thread.  I preface this is just my opinion!  Braid is both the least sensitive and the most sensitive. Fluorocarbon is the best for transmitting bites on bottom contact bites. On the fall it transmits better due to it's being stiffer (less limp) then monofilament or braid. hence the term "jump" (mine line jumped a foot when that hydrilla gorilla bit) that is used when getting a hard bite on the fall. Monofilament transmits bite detection almost as well as fluoro does. I don't use the co-ploymer lines at all. I imagine that they are the same as fluoro or mono.

     Braided line being very limp has no bite transmission when it is anything other then taut/tight to the lure.  Braided line when taut lets you feel everything that's happening at the end of your line. So it is also the best when taut and least when limp.

    In summation I use mostly fluorocarbon for "normal" casting and retrieving jig or worm bottom contact fishing. If I am pitching or flipping to heavy cover or through matted or heavy weeds with a heavier weight or jig then it is braid and I am tight to my lure through out the cast and retrieve.

That's my .02.

Fishingmickey

 

 

Let me explain it this way!

 

I could put any high end reel on any high end rod, spool it with braid for maximum sensitivity, tie on a Texas rig & then give it to my wife.

She could not "feel" any difference if I had rigged it up on a Berkley Lightening rod!

 

Why?

Cause what is transmitted up the line, down the rod, through the hands will be lost in the brain.

She doesn't fish & would not be able to interpret what she is feeling.

 

Even for the average angler a certain amount of "sensitivity" is lost in the brain.

If I bought a rod that cost over $150, my bank account would hit bottom, and my head may get contacted by my wife.  That is what sensitivity means to me.

Wow. Got a lot more replies than I expected! Thank you all. 
 

As far as braid vs Fluoro, I use Fluoro as I find the semi slack line sensitivity much better which makes it much easier to detect strikes.

 

I love my champion extreme, and I do feel like I can feel everything going on down there. However, there are certain times when I feel my bait do something and I wonder “was that a bite, or was it my bait just falling off some grass?” 
 

That combined with comments I’ve seen from some people saying rods like the NRX+, the conquest, the steez ags and other $500+ rods “are in a different galaxy” to rods like my champion extreme does leave me wondering if upgrading would allow me to better interpret what I’m feeling, equaling more hook sets with a fish on the other end. 

 

I also believe the fact that I use my finger to feel the line makes a big difference. This is one of the reasons I have some doubts as to how much of a difference the rod actually makes for me. How much of what I’m feeling is from the line on my finger, and how much is from the rod?

 

I think the only way to find out for sure would be to try one of the expensive rods and see for myself. I’m sure it’s different for everyone.

 

Thanks again for all the replies. I’m really enjoying reading all of the feedback you’ve all given me!