I spend a lot of time shore fishing riprap on a canal - literally miles of it. I've had good luck on the same body of water trolling a lipless where I'm ticking the rocks 5 or 6 feet down. But to get to that sweep spot from shore and stay there retrieving parallel to the bank, requires a much longer rod so last fall I added a 9'6 Okuma SST rod (spinning) to my arsenal. Very first cast with it I caught an 18" smallie on a spybait, and I can say after spending a few months with it this spring, it sure is a nice spybait rod even if it wasn't designed for it!

All of this got me thinking about cranking. Until now I simply don't from shore because retrieving into those rocks it's a snag every 10 minutes. But if I can keep the entire cast parallel to shore on the retrieve, different story. You can check out my other post on this same topic under tackle, but I decided to give this a serious try and I just ordered a 10'6 medium casting rod rated heavy enough to handle small to medium cranks. 10'6! Sounds crazy, but that puts my rod tip out over the water exactly where it needs to be.

Anyone ever cast with a setup that long on a casting reel with accuracy? My 9'6 medium light is spinning and is pretty accurate, I've yet to try casting on anything over 7'3.

I haven't myself, but I completely agree with your logic. I throw from near the water on a rocky breakwall and it's the backswing that limits me. I have a 7'9LT/BFS and a 7'8M as my longest rods and they are a blast to fish, the extra length also comes in handy trying to keep my smallies from digging into the mussel covered rocks right as I try to land them. Good luck and look forward to pics!

scott

Well, yeah, up to 14' in the surf.

This day, was casting 2-oz spider weight consistently to 400'

I have a gang of shore rods both for surf and tide passes that will fish 3 g to 4 oz.

top, 8' RH Customs (surf) ML 1/4 to 1 oz, middle, 8'9" Abu Super Light Shore Jigging, 3 to 30 g; bottom, 14' ZZiPlex 3-pc, 2 to 5 oz.

My extreme distance + accuracy rods (120' to 200') include 8'2' Yamaga Blanks Blue Current III, and surprising 7'8' Purelure Seabed from A/E. Last time I fished this, was hooking fish 180' away on 1/4-oz jerkbait.

Recently added Y/B Early for Surf, 10'6", for casting 1- to 2-oz plugs.

Anything over 10ft is pretty d**n long for bass fishing. They have their time and places. The longest i have is 8ft 11inch and i use it for heavy carolina rig from shore certain time of the year. It is a lot of fun getting bit way out there with lots of lines out, reel in and hook set with a long rod.

Not uncommon for a muskie rod to be 8-9 feet in length. You gain leverage with the length. And some of the lures are really big so you need that.

Problem is that most rod lockers cannot handle rods of this length. Mine is 8 feet max.

Not for bass, but I have a 9' casting rod in the basement that I used to use for steelhead float fishing. It will cast just like the rest of my casting rods though if I'm throwing a single bait. I bet it would bomb a 1/2 oz red eye shad or 4" plopper bait.

I regularly will do just about anything on a rod up to about 8'6" to 9'0". 8'6" is actually my favorite overall rod length. But longer than that and it's fixed bait and float fishing.

The casting isn't a problem, it's the constant retrieving. Grabbing a rod out of the holder to check bait, not an issue because the hand is high on the foregrip, with the weight in the palm and the butt supported by the body. Constantly casting and cranking a lure, our hand is on or below the reel.

Really long rods are prioritized to foregrip, including for working lures.

You jam the rod butt into your thigh. If you notice, many surf rods don't even have an aft grip.

Also works great with NLW conventional reels, you can use foregrip thumb to correct line lay when needed.

Less essential with Y/B, including Early, and RH Customs, but many rods over 10' are so tip-heavy, you otherwise can't feel the lure.

Rods categorized as Steelhead rods would fit the bill & most of them are offered as two piece for transport. I have used 8.5' light weight St Croix rods for smallies & they work out fine with treble hook baits. I knew a guy up in Canada who fished long rods at night trolling on piers for walleye with jointed jerk baits. He actually trolled parallel to the pier by walking up & down the concrete pier surface. He was very successful catching big walleye with his technique.

So following up on my post, I gave the 10'6 casting rod a shot but still snagged and lost two cranks on the first trip, one of them being a brand new Megabass Sonic Side which had just hooked a real nice fish. I went ahead and made a couple lure retrievers for the next trip, it saved me one crank then next snag I lost the bait and the retriever in the rocks. Same old story...crankbaiting rip rap from shore is just always a risky proposition so back to other baits or my canoe for now. That 10'6 medium was pretty heavy too!

On the other hand, I'm still very impressed with my Okuma SST 9'6 medium light for both paddle tails and spybaits from shore. It's actually taken over that duty from rods I own that cost three times or more, the extra length when making parallel casts is worth the difference. I tried a 10'6 medium light and that was a bit too long, 9'6 seems to be a good compromise for length.

Never even used anything over 7.11.

I also fished steelhead rods inshore for two decades, both from drifting power boat, and kayak.

On the power boat, they have the reach advantage of getting far ahead of hull slap.

On the kayak, they help lift 3/8-oz JH above the shallow grass.

For that, though, they're made obsolete by BFS and 1/8-oz JH.

On 6/12/2026 at 8:49 AM, gim said:

You gain leverage with the length.

Although I am not an engineer, nor did I sleep at a Holiday Inn Express last night, if a rod is a given length and the distance from the butt end to the foregrip increases, I agree that this would give the angler more leverage. However, if we're talking increasing the length of the rod and the distance from the butt end to the foregrip (and all other relevant factors) remaining more or less the same (which I think is what is being discussed here), I would think that would decrease the leverage the angler would have, no?

I've never fished with anything over 7'6" for bass. For catfish 8'0" and 9'0" rods were the norm.

@Big Hands

Intentional short rod (6'4' OL) intended for close sight fishing (to big fish - redfish)

if you had that same rod blade in a single-hand grip, and tackling the same size fish,

your single grip hand is in torsion.

With the 2-hand grip, you can push on the rod butt with your rod-butt hand to reduce the grip torsion, and also pull the rod with both hands to lift and horse the fish.

1 hour ago, Big Hands said:

Although I am not an engineer, nor did I sleep at a Holiday Inn Express last night, if a rod is a given length and the distance from the butt end to the foregrip increases, I agree that this would give the angler more leverage. However, if we're talking increasing the length of the rod and the distance from the butt end to the foregrip (and all other relevant factors) remaining more or less the same (which I think is what is being discussed here), I would think that would decrease the leverage the angler would have, no?

I'm also not an engineer that math is over my head. I just know that it's much easier to toss a big muskie lure with a longer rod than it is with a shorter one. Most muskie rods are 8-9 feet nowadays for that specific reason.

that's line speed (angular velocity), and the whole point of a long rod