Rod Actions

[paceman]

As mostly a live bait, lindy rigger for walleyes. I use rods that are rated as medium with fast tips. I have been toying with the idea of getting another quality rod with a medium-light, fast tip. Do you think I would notice any difference when detecting a bite or would it be about the same as I have now. Also would I lose any fish fighting control with going down to a ML?

[magnum mike]

The way it was explained to me is the shorter & faster your hook set is, the faster the action should be. I'm a jig guy so I primarily use fast / ex fast action rods. For a sweeping slower hook set, you slow down the rod action. Since the rod is already loaded with the weight of your lindy rig set-up, you aren't sacrificing any speed. Lighter and more sensitive rods are usually more expensive due to the materials used to make them lighter. The weight of the rod is exactly that. The weight of your lures and the size of the fish you catch. You can "horse" in fish easier with a heavier rod but you sacrifice sensitivity. Northern & musky rods are heavy action but they slam the bait and you don't need that touch factor.

[John Mickish]

If you are looking across one manufacturers line, all fast action rods will have the same points where the bend starts and stops. Same goes for Moderate and X-fast. Keep in mind that one makers X-fast can be the same as anothers fast action so it can be an apples to apples or apples to bananas comparison.

The weight, or power of the rod(medium light, medium and medium heavy) is the weight that the rod is designed to work with, this is usually printed on the rod. Not that you can't use a medium light to throw a 3/4 oz football jig, it's just not designed for that much weight. To much weight on the rod will result in getting into the rods backbone when fighting a fish, and not using the rods natural ability to bend and keep the pressure on the hook.

I do use both medium and medium light rods for both lindy rigging and jigging. Both work fine until you start to get into fish over 24", then the medlight gets over powered and can't quite control them like the medium can.

[Deitz Dittrich]

John has some very good points.. THe rods action is best fitted to the technique. For presentations that require you to put the action into the rod(IE Jig.) you want a fast and sometimes even extra fast so that the rod does not muffle or hamper the action you are trying to get.. For presentations that have their own action(lindy rig, crankbaits.) then you are some times better off with a more moderate action to the rod, fast or even moderate. The rods power(ML, M, MH) strictly should be based on the weigh of the lure you are using.

Rod lengths can be changed around to reach different techniques and such, but thats a whole different ball game..

So, to answer your question, no-- you will not necessarily feel more bites going from a M to a ML, unless you are using very light jigs, in which case you might.

as for loosing control, you will loose some hook setting power going from M to a ML, but you will not really loose a lot in control unless you need to get fish away from weeds and or the such quickly.

Hope this helps.