What do you prefer??

[Mackdaddy21]

I like medium and medium lite actions best. For throwing spinners, cranks, jerkbaits, and topwaters, i like a slow action rod with a lot of flex. Seems to help keep fish hooked better.
For bait and jigs, I like stiffer rods with a fast tip and far less flex. I feel the hits better and set hooks better.
I have 13 different open water setups and several ice setups. No one rod and reel combo works for all species. But medium light and medium is best for predators like trout, bass, walleye, and pike. Catfish call for heavier gear.

Tyler

[ChenBassHead]

Personally, I like to match my rod/reel combo to my presentation. Certain rods for crankbaits, spinnerbaits, soft plastics, jigs, etc... Personally, one of my favorite set ups is a Berkley Lightning Rod with an Okuma Metaloid. That's a good all around rod for bass fishing because it's stiff enough to fish top waters, spinnerbaits and cranks, yet sensitive enough to fish soft plastics and jigs.

-Zach

[TroutFishingBear]

What? No Ugly Stix  I love my 6' M Uglies. I have mostly Quantum reels.

They are nice for trolling, but that is about it in my opinion. They have poor casting ability, and when I use them for trout with my secret technique, you cannot hook the trout and it is difficult to tell the difference between a bite and a rock. (sounds weird, but true).

For trout, I use short, 5'6" shakespeare rods (stiff tip, light action) with the new small abu garcia real. It is a deadly combo and is great for my secret technique.

For bass, walleye, etc., I like the berkley lightning rod (medium action) 6' or even sometimes a little longer of a rod. I use a quantum real.

[genz_man]

Would prefer to use st croix in spring and summer but buy shimano and quantum stuff mostly to save money. The st croix are really good but I cannot see spending 70-80 bucks on a rod I am going to bust anyway. Tried most reels and prefer shimano for all around fishing even on the ice. On the ice for rods I used to use south bend for panfish but they do not make a quality rod anymore. The closest thing I found that is a totally awesome rod for panfish is the ice blue series by HT. If you like panfishing on the ice it is hard to beat these rods and they are cheap also.