How to Select and Protect your First Fishing Rod?

select-and-protect-fishing-rod

We’ll just state the obvious. Fishing for walleye is just plain fun. Thrilling and fast-paced, catching walleye means an angler has to be quick-thinking when it comes to fishing this predator. That’s why we asked walleye expert, Dale Gilbert, to share his extensive walleye knowledge with us. A walleye master, Dale, has fished walleye from Arkansas to Canada and Michigan to Montana, and he doesn’t disappoint.

Different rods have different applications but selecting a versatile rod as your first fishing rod is a good place to start. Dale Gilbert shares his must haves when choosing a rod and what you can do to keep your new rod protected.

Want to learn more tips & tricks about catching walleye? Click here to read more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_k1msBdn_c

Video Transcription

Selecting your First Fishing Rod?

Hey folks, I'm going to talk to you a little bit about picking out your first fishing rod. There's different rods, and they all have different applications and some work better for some things than others. But, all in all, if I was starting out and I was looking for a good fishing rod, and especially if I was going to do a little jigging for walleyes, my first choice would be to get something similar to this.

This is a spinning rod. You can see the pretty big eyes here. It's set up with a spinning reel. Why I would pick this is because it's probably the most versatile thing that exists out there. You literally can do anything with this. You can fish any species. You can fish jigs, you can fish crank baits, you can actually troll with bottom bouncers and rigs.

Literally, you could fish anyway. You can set up a slip bobber set up on here or you could do anything you want and be pretty effective at what it is. And the open face spinning reels like this really give you a lot of options and work really, really well.

Favorite Setup for Jigging for Walleyes

This particular rod is one of my favorite rods for jigging for walleyes. This is a Swate Brigade spinning reel. This is a six foot, three inch medium power, extra fast action. Which the action is basically how much the rod reacts to pressure. You can see how that tip kind of goes and bends pretty quick there. But it's super, super sensitive if you're getting into jig fishing for Walleye, and you want something all around that you can use for everything, that's why I use this kind of setup with this kind of rod. It's got a good rod blank. It's got the great action. It's very sensitive, it's fairly light. It's got a great handle and a great real.

This is a Brigade Black label, 1000 series spinning reel, spooled up a six pound Fireline here. I put some backing on there. I put the 10 pound XD monofilament backing and then fill this with 125 yards up to about the capacity of that spool. But it makes for a perfect set up, and it's going to give you a super, super sensitive rod. And again you can do just about anything you want with that rod. So that would be my number one choice would be something like this.

Protect and Organize Your Rods

Every rod that I put in my boat... And I've got a big Lund and it's got about 15 rod tubes in there, but I actually stick about 30 rods in my rod compartment because I use these stick jackets here. They're kind of a nylon sheath, but they go over the rods like this, so that it protects the rods and it also keep things from getting tangled up all the time. So it makes it real easy. And a couple of things I really like about these is number one, you stick them on the rods.

Besides protecting the rods and tangle-free. It makes it all so easy because they make different colors. You can see the red and the yellow and blue and green and black and there's a variety of colors. And they also make different ones. Like, this is for a spinning rod and reel. This here is for a casting rod and real, so it's not quite as big of a sleeve here. They're definitely worth the investment for what they accomplish.

And typically what I do in my boat is I'll put, there's an orange one. I'll put my trolling rods, all four of them or five of them, whatever I've got that are the same setups, I'll use one color of the sock. So when I glance into the rod locker, I can actually see just from the color and grab the rod I want.

If you've got any questions or need any further information, just stop by any of the North 40 Outfitters stores, or check the website at north40.com. Thanks for watching, and hope to see you again. Thanks.

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