Is there a bit of a move back towards some of the slightly shorter lure rods again? How do you gauge what’s going on out there?

Yep, I get the thing about blokes talking about rod lengths and so on, but you can’t get away from the whole lure rod length being one of the most emotive subjects in lure fishing for bass. Is it a male obsessive thing? For some reason I have never fully understood, some anglers can actually get quite argumentative and personal about what the “best” length is for a lure rod - when, let’s be honest, it’s up to you what you like to use or not use…………..

I am not privy to any of the sales figures of any of the Pure Fishing brands (Savage Gear, Penn, Berkley, ABU etc.) so there is nothing but speculation and opinion contained within this blog post today. I don't know which rods or which rod lengths sell better or worse than others for example. If an angler contacts me to ask about my thoughts on what might be the most applicable lure rod length for them and their bass fishing, firstly I work on my own and I sadly don’t have the time to engage in a raft of messages, and secondly I am often going to suggest that a lure rod around 9’ long is a pretty good bet to cover a lot of the sort of lure fishing they might end up doing. Purely because that is what I think, which might be different to what another angler thinks of course.

One thing I have always been interested in is how a specific type of fishing such as this bass lure thing develops and grows or potentially contracts of course. If I was any good at statistics I could probably chart the different average rod lengths being used by anglers who feature in my vast photo library for example. I can see a lot of what might be classed as “shorter” lure rods being used as I was really getting into lure fishing and things like surf fishing hadn’t really entered my world, then without a doubt there seem to be more rods around the 9’6’’ length appearing. Take a look at my photos of bass fishing from the last couple of years and you are going to see a much wider range of overall rod lengths being used. Which in turn mirrors how varied my own bass fishing has become over time.

We started working on the new range of Savage Gear SG8 lure rods over two years ago now and even in that time I think that a few things have changed a bit. The SG8 9’ 44g is probably my most used rod from the new range for example, but a couple of years ago I wasn’t obsessing about starting to spend time trying to deftly present a crab imitation lure almost below my rod tip in ninja fishing mode. I think that something a bit lighter and preferably a touch shorter is more efficient for situations like these, but that’s just me. I am no more right or wrong than the next angler.

And so on and so forth as the individual angler delves further into this world. They might well stick with one form of bass fishing which requires only the one lure rod, or they might end up down the road to a full blown addiction and end up finding out that their 9’6’’ 35g rod which has served them so well isn’t that handy if they end up trying to cast and swim a 3’’ long paddletail on a lightweight jig head AND you need to fight your way through trees and undergrowth to get to your mark where you might fish like this. Horses for courses and all that, and you know how I obsess about the one lure rod to kinda do it all - which, let’s face it, might well not be possible if you embrace as much variety as possible. What is that “all” for you though?

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