Looking for new trout rod.

[Exophysical]

For as long as I've been able to afford more than one fishing rod I've done all my trout fishing with a fly rod, with a young family in tow I'm thinking those days are more or less over for a few years. Fly fishing with a couple kids in the boat is both frustrating and unproductive, furthermore my clinging to an overly complicated method of catching fish tends to detract from everyone else's fun so I'm doing the responsible thing and going back to spinning gear this year. Having never owned a spinning rod for the purpose of catching trout I'm a little puzzled about what to buy. We fish everything from streams to fair sized lakes for trout and generally cast and troll lures, or soak bait under a bobber. I'm guessing I'm looking for a light or ultra light rod but why are they all so short? Is a short rod really much of an advantage when fishing for trout? Does one usually look for a rod with a fast action or more of a slow action like a flyrod?

At this point I'm leaning towards one of the new Uglysticks, about 6 feet long in light action but any suggestions would be welcome.

[Knute78]

I gave up on the ultra light set ups for stream fishing. I am now more interested in landing quality larger fish in a timely fashion and being able to maneuver them where I need them to go. So I now use a 6' or 6'6" Medium action rod with 6 lb maybe 8 lb test line. Plus if you don't hit the hole and get a "snag" you have a little more yank!

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[LenH]

I gave up on the ultra light set ups for stream fishing. I am now more interested in landing quality larger fish in a timely fashion and being able to maneuver them where I need them to go. So I now use a 6' or 6'6" Medium action rod with 6 lb maybe 8 lb test line. Plus if you don't hit the hole and get a "snag" you have a little more yank!

[ Post made via iPhone ]

X2

[Exophysical]

Alright, so the general opinion so far is I should just use one of my walleye rods?

[James]

I normally fly fish trout but when I really want to run and gun or target big fish I use a 6'6" Medium Fast St Croix Triumph with a Quantum Accurist Spinning reel and I've gotten away from the braids and use 8lb Nanofil, super strong stuff that I can yank on but more importantly easily get the distance I need.

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[BassBoysLLP]

When dealing with kids, you can't go wrong with a ML Ugly Stick. Tough as nails and plenty of backbone to pull a fish out of sticks. I still watch my line more than feel the bite when fishing monofilament in a trout setting. Sensitive walleye jigging rods are asking to be broken...

[Dhurtubise]

What's your style? Are you casting spoons for mountain lake rainbows? Are you bait fishing? Are you trolling in a canoe/boat? All of this matters when deciding what kind of rod you want.

Personally, I haven't fished with an ugly stick in many years. It was my first ultra light rod and it was indestructible, although I did lose the tip of the rod on a portage eventually. Even that ultralight 5' spinning rod was a little heavy and what I remember of it, it wasn't sensitive at all. Great for Kids as Bassboyllp said, but I think you might like something better, especially if you are casting smallish spoons around.

When I lived in Tumbler Ridge, a few (6) hours north west of Edmonton, I fished mountain rainbow lakes almost exclusively. I still dream of those acrobats today and what a pleasure it was to float tube around with high mountain backdrops and fish that were like a bolt of lightning at the end of your rod. Our rainbows down east are but a mere shadow of their western brethren. When I didn't fish for rainbows, there were abundant bull trout and grayling, though they were nowhere near as fun to catch.

My favorite method to fish for those fish was to cast as far as I could with 1/4 to 1/2 oz spoons and retrieve them erratically, keeping them at depths of 5 to 12 feet. When a trout took the bait, your line would bow and squeal through the water until they invariably took to the air, often flying 15 -20 feet across the water, sending back your spoon in a boomerang effect. Oh what fun that was! Even a 1.5 lb fish was a real challenge to land. Some of those lakes had 8 lb residents in them .... If I landed one fish for every 5 hooked, I felt I was doing well.

Anyway, I still fish very much with the same methods today, though usually out of a boat with a casting platform, a trolling motor and very large brook trout as my quarry. I have moved away from smaller rods over the years. For overall lake fishing, I use a 7'6" fenwick elite tech river runner rod that you can usually pick up for about 90$ on amazon. (http://www.buyfishingstuff.com/fenwickriverrunner.shtml). It's a great rod for most backwoods trout lakes with the only complaint being that the tip is slightly longer than the but section, which makes packing a bit of a pain in the ... I am moving to a longer rod now, but I am fishing big water compared to you. My new rod for the year will be an 8'6" Fenwick HMX spinning rod, essentially a light steelhead rod, but I think that with your small lakes, and most likely smaller boats, the River Runner will be very serviceable. It also performs real well in small to large rivers, though you might prefer your fly rod then.

You should pair that rod with a good spinning reel. I haven't found the ideal one for me yet, but my Pflueger Supreme XT is pretty good http://www.pfluegerfishing.com/Pflueger ... lt,pd.html. A good price for those is about 90 - 100$. A decent sized arbor is essential if you want to be casting good distances. You can also never go wrong with the bullet proof Shimano Stradic. It's better to have a reel that is slightly too big than too small. For the Pfluegers, the 9230s are a real good size. Fill the spool with some reasonable mono or braid of your choice with the last 50 yards, the casting end, with 8 -12 lb nanofil, tipped with a 5' fluoro leader. Learn to tie a double Albright knot to link all those parts together and you have a veritable casting machine! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLmvyyojZfY.

Good luck. I look forward to my boys being old enough to take them on a trout fishing/hiking trip up in the rockies and foothills. Every angler should experience that once in their life. It's still my most favorite fishing I've ever experienced to this day.

[Dhurtubise]

For as long as I've been able to afford more than one fishing rod I've done all my trout fishing with a fly rod, with a young family in tow I'm thinking those days are more or less over for a few years. Fly fishing with a couple kids in the boat is both frustrating and unproductive, furthermore my clinging to an overly complicated method of catching fish tends to detract from everyone else's fun so I'm doing the responsible thing and going back to spinning gear this year. Having never owned a spinning rod for the purpose of catching trout I'm a little puzzled about what to buy. We fish everything from streams to fair sized lakes for trout and generally cast and troll lures, or soak bait under a bobber. I'm guessing I'm looking for a light or ultra light rod but why are they all so short? I agree. Most of the ultralights are too short and casting lures on those short rods really really sucks, though they will troll lures and bobber fish (use slip bobbers) fine.

Is a short rod really much of an advantage when fishing for trout? NO! Does one usually look for a rod with a fast action or more of a slow action like a flyrod? Fast action is best. There are very few applications where a slower action will be a benefit to you with a spinning rod.

At this point I'm leaning towards one of the new Uglysticks, about 6 feet long in light action but any suggestions would be welcome.

Sorry I handn't reread your post before responding before (I read it on Monday and put off responding until I had some time to elaborate) The rod I suggested should work quite well for you (Fenwick Elite Tech River Runner 7'6"). I wish they built an 8 footer.

By the way, thanks for posting your river hunts. I am new to hunting (this was my second fall), and I find them absolutely inspiring. Being an avid canoeist/tripper/fisherman, your trips fuel my dreams of one day experiencing hunts like that.

[Exophysical]

For as long as I've been able to afford more than one fishing rod I've done all my trout fishing with a fly rod, with a young family in tow I'm thinking those days are more or less over for a few years. Fly fishing with a couple kids in the boat is both frustrating and unproductive, furthermore my clinging to an overly complicated method of catching fish tends to detract from everyone else's fun so I'm doing the responsible thing and going back to spinning gear this year. Having never owned a spinning rod for the purpose of catching trout I'm a little puzzled about what to buy. We fish everything from streams to fair sized lakes for trout and generally cast and troll lures, or soak bait under a bobber. I'm guessing I'm looking for a light or ultra light rod but why are they all so short? I agree. Most of the ultralights are too short and casting lures on those short rods really really sucks, though they will troll lures and bobber fish (use slip bobbers) fine.

Is a short rod really much of an advantage when fishing for trout? NO! Does one usually look for a rod with a fast action or more of a slow action like a flyrod? Fast action is best. There are very few applications where a slower action will be a benefit to you with a spinning rod.

At this point I'm leaning towards one of the new Uglysticks, about 6 feet long in light action but any suggestions would be welcome.

Sorry I handn't reread your post before responding before (I read it on Monday and put off responding until I had some time to elaborate) The rod I suggested should work quite well for you (Fenwick Elite Tech River Runner 7'6"). I wish they built an 8 footer.

By the way, thanks for posting your river hunts. I am new to hunting (this was my second fall), and I find them absolutely inspiring. Being an avid canoeist/tripper/fisherman, your trips fuel my dreams of one day experiencing hunts like that.

Ya, I agree that the original ugly sticks are pretty crude rods. I had a chance to handle the new Uglystik Gx2 rods though and they seem like a significant improvement. Way lighter, the old buggy whip feel in the tip is absent in most models, faster action with more backbone... and despite what seems like a significantly higher percentage of graphite in the rod blank they still come with the 7 year warranty so I'm assuming they must still be pretty tough.

Thanks for your kind words on the trip reports, that's what I aim for is to try and inspire others to try that kind of thing for themselves. When I first started doing those hunts I could find very little information and I had a whole bunch of people telling me that it was a dumb idea, I still have lots of people who try to discourage me from doing them and I still know lots of guys who talk about such a trip who are just too scared to try it. Hopefully by getting those trip reports up on the web, others that are interested will stumble across it and be encouraged to give it a try. The next successful trip I take I'm going to try and make it more of a how-to sort of write up and picture shoot, despite a pretty good working knowledge on river tripping it did take me a few years to learn the in's and out's of how to pull off canoe hunt properly.

[Exophysical]

Oddly enough I found an Ugly stik Gx2 ice fishing rod today while I was fishing, it must have bounced off of a sled or something. It appeared to have been run over at least once, as the reel and fish hook were crushed but the rod itself is in good shape, so the Ugly tough thing is still there. I used it to catch a few fish and true to their claims it is quite a bit more sensitive than the old models, there's more sensitive rods in my ice fishing pail but for all practical purposes it deffinatly gets the job done. I doubt that any of the other rods in my pail would survive getting run over. I think I'm going to get one for trout fishing, it seems like they've somehow managed to make the Uglystik a whole lot more fishable without compromising the toughness.