what's the difference between rod action and rod power and more importantly how to choose a rod
that is right for you and the type of lures line that you used all right here we go first let's
start off with defining what rod power is rod power is simply the amount of pressure needed to
put on a rod in order to make it bend so when you hear words like ultra light light medium medium
heavy heavy extra heavy these are all referring to rod power and the reason it's important to
know the rod power is because you're going to have to match it to the line and lure that you're using
for example you wouldn't use a 65 pound test braid with a hollow body frog on an ultra light
power rod you're simply going to have too much bend you're not going to be able to transfer
enough power to the hook set and you're never going to be able to pin that bass and on the flip
side you wouldn't use a four pound test line on an extra heavy rod fishing a chatter bait
because whenever a bass would hit that when you set the hook you would literally snap your line
because you're transferring too much power now let's talk about fishing rod action how this is
different than fishing rod power so fishing rod action is telling you where along the rod shaft
it is going to bend so when you hear words like fast extra fast moderate slow it's referring to
when on the rod blanket starts to bend so you're extra fast it's going to be right out here
you get too fast it's going to bend around here you get moderate right here and slow it's going
to start bending in right around the middle of your shaft so why this is important is because
as you get closer to where your hand is there's more power in the shaft it doesn't bend at all
and as you get further out toward the tip the power diminishes essentially what happens if
it's an extra fast action bends out here on the tip and what you're doing is deflecting power
closer to the bottom of the rod blank where it's more powerful so let's talk about the real world
applications and what type of line and lures you would use with each type of rod action and
rod power the power and actually mirage would be informed by the lines and lure than you're using
so if you're using really light lures say 1 16 ounce on a four pound test line you're going to
want something that's more bendy or has a ultra light type of setup ultra light power because you
don't want with four pound test line this being thing to be really stiff when you set the hook or
when that fish is fighting you want this to act as your shock absorber not your fishing line and on
the flip side this is a medium heavy casting rod this isn't going to bend a whole lot because it
is designed to transfer a lot of power to set this big hook into lips that largemouth bass
and if necessary to fight it out of heavy cover as you can see between these two hooks one is
super small this is an aberdeen hook used for putting a worm on it and catching some bluegill
this is a bladed jig which has a giant hook on it as you can see the wire gauge is much thicker
this is i'm going to use this when using a light ultra light setup i'm going to whenever
i fish this type of lure i'm going to want a i think i have 65 pound braid on a medium heavy
so extra fast and fast action rods are going to do a few things for you they're going to
provide great sensitivity for you if you're new to fishing sensitivity is your ability to
feel through the rod a bite on your lure so if you're using a really extra fast a heavy power
rod with a 65 pound braid per se you're gonna have high sensitivity you're gonna be able to feel
everything that that lure is knocking into at the bottom of the water and on the flip side if you're
using a high stretch line like monofilament on a slow action rod uh a bendy one you are going to
have low sensitivity which is why we have things like bobbers so when do you use light action rods
really you want to use light action rods whenever you just want to keep the fish on a great example
of this would be a crank bait when a bass hits the crank bait they usually hook themselves
and you want your rod to act as a shock absorber to keep that fish on so they can't throw your hook
and when do you want to use fast action rods well whenever you want to transfer as much power as you
possibly can so some great real world applications to this is when you're using jerk baits
you know top waters your frogging you're jigging these would be perfect examples when you want a
faster action rod and if you don't know how to fish your frogs your senkos your
drop shots your crankbaits or any other lore i might have mentioned i have an entire playlist
devoted to helping you dial those in so you can catch more and bigger fish right there
you