Does it really matter how long your lure fishing rod is?

Four sample rods turned up here earlier in the week for me to have a bit of a go with, but I’ve only got them for a few days before they need to go back. Yesterday morning I took the 8’9’’ and the 9’4’’ versions out for an hour or so and it was also a good chance to check out how a few new/sample lures cast and swim and so on. I don’t know which rod you would choose to have a go with first, but I had it in my head to use the 8’9’’ one first and then work my way into the 9’4’’ to see how they compared. I can’t say what these rods are yet but damn they are interesting - so “sharp” and insanely precise and from only an hour with these two rods I am sorely tempted to be permanently out when the courier arrives to take them back………….

Anyway, so I pick up the 8’9’’ and start going through a few hard and soft lures and I’m starting to enjoy how the rod is opening up to me, and of course I am bloody itching to get out on the coast and see if any bass are mooching around yet with it having been one of the mildest winters I can remember down here. Some of the first “proper” lure rods I really got into were around the 8’ mark and for the life of me I can’t remember feeling like an 8’ length of carbon was holding me back with any of the bass lure fishing I was doing, so an 8’9’’ rod which feels like a wand is always going to have some appeal to me.

I then go to put the 8’9’’ down and I grab the 9’4’’ sample, clip a lure on, and launch it out there. I’m oohing and aahing like I tend to do when I’ve got serious carbon in my hands but my eyes keep coming back to the overall length of rod and I could have sworn that this 9’4’’ sample I am starting to play around with is actually a bit shorter than the 8’9’’ I have just put down. A few casts later and I am now bloody convinced that the 9’4’’ is shorter than the 8’9’’. My head gets the better of me and I go check the 8’9’’ which is sitting against a tree, only it’s the 9’4’’ and I’ve got the 8’9’’ in my hands and the first rod I had a go with was actually the 9’4’’ and not the 8’9’’. Suitably confused yet?

Now it does help that these two rods are so ridiculously “sharp” I feel like I can literally cut the air with them, but if that had been a real fishing session I’d have strapped the 9’4’’ to the racks on my Epic Berlingo and fished with the rod for a session while believing it was the 8’9’’. I ain’t about to change the world of fishing rods here by the way, but I do wonder if a number of anglers get themselves a bit tied in knots over what the best length lure rod is instead of concerning themselves more with a good casting style, being able to adjust their drop lengths and casting to suit different lures, and however obsessed with lure rods I might increasingly be, at the end of the day we are far better off spending more time and energy on learning about the where and when bass are most likely to be around.

I accept that a longer rod in theory puts lures out further than a shorter one, but I just don’t think it’s as cut and dried as that. I would argue that an angler who can cast really well is going to put his or her lures out better on an 8’ rod than an angler with a 10’ rod who is struggling with their timing. A pokey 8’ rod on the wrasse is going to have more leverage than a 10’ rod and with the size and relative power of our beautiful bass I simply do not subscribe to needing to “steer” fish around snags with longer rods. I get the idea behind it, but then I see so many anglers so afraid to put any kind of bend in their (longer) rod that the frigging fish has swum around a rock anyway!

I do happen to really like how the action of the 10’ long 12-42g HTO Nebula rod works for my surf fishing for example, but I have also waded out into the waves with my beloved Shimano Exsence Genos S90MH/R 9' 8-48g lure rod in my hands and 12 inches less carbon fibre in my hands works just fine. I watch some of these Japanese (sea) bass fishing videos on YouTube and I can’t help but notice how so many of them fish with longer rods than I would tend to from the rocks especially, but does it matter, and especially with the relative size of our fish and how well a lot of anglers continue to do with what might be classed as shorter rods these days? As amazing as some of these longer rods are these days, I also take somebody like Marc Cowling’s point here when he argues for rods around the 8’6’’ length being ideal for the bulk of his fishing and guiding work and how “right” a shorter rod can feel in the hands. Horses for courses as always?

If you read my lure rod reviews on here, have you ever picked up on how I never really talk about how the rod performs when you’re fighting a fish? You may well disagree with me here, but I really don’t think it matters very much with the size of our bass and how short the scraps are, or should really be I might add. Some people say to me that very stiff rods can pull the hooks out of the mouths of bass and some say that a softer rod feels better when hooked up to a fish - and so on. I like to think that I get the different arguments, but that doesn’t mean I agree with them. The aspects I am most interested in with lure rods especially because they spend so long in our hands instead of a rod rest is obviously how they do actually feel in our hands for longer periods, plus how they cast and handle and work certain lures in certain conditions. As much as I enjoy fishing with a variety of rod lengths and casting ratings and I guess I’d go for a 9’ long lure rod if you nailed me down and made me choose the one rod (and it would be my Shimano Exsence Genos S90MH/R 9' 8-48g because it covers all the lure fishing for bass that I currently do and know about), at the end of the day I’d implore any angler who is undecided to go with what you like the feel of the most rather than what other anglers/people like me suggest you should be using. You all have a good weekend and could somebody please explain to me just why there seems to be so much panic-buying of bog roll going on? I am obviously reading as much about the coronavirus as you probably are, but why the bog roll thing, or am I missing something?

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