Cheap Vs. Expensive Fishing Rods - Which Should You Buy?

hey you guys matt allen here welcome back to tactical bassin today we are talking cheap versus expensive fishing rods what do you get for your money is it worth it is it something you should do what are the advantages what are the disadvantages when is one better than another that's what we're talking about today let's jump into it this topic comes up constantly for us probably the number one question that people ask regarding rods and reels is do they need expensive gear to catch bass do you need to buy high-end equipment the answer is quite simply no you don't let's get that out there right up front before i start talking about the benefits or issues know that you do not need to spend a pile of money to go out and catch a bass you can catch them on the cheapest equipment on the market from the shore in a pond and have a blast but bass fishing like mini sports is something that you can fine-tune and fine-tune and fine-tune and get better and better and better and take it to whole different levels that in the beginning you didn't even know existed so there is a place for high-end gear but you do not need it this is a difficult subject because it's probably also the largest source of hate in the comments section that we get on youtube tim and i constantly catch heat for the combos that we recommend and it it wouldn't recom it wouldn't matter what we recommended the heat would come whether you recommended a thousand dollar combo or a forty dollar combo there's going to be somebody that doesn't like it because it's all opinion based so what we're going to do today is talk about advantages and disadvantages you can draw your own conclusions but i'm also going to give you some very specific recommendations at the end based on value not based on price based on value so coming out the gate i didn't bring everything with me out here i just brought a sampling of rods you know 13 fishing abu garcia diarrheal diola rod with a shimano reel shimano combo edge rods mega bass g loomis dobbins i just brought you guys a sampling of stuff the purpose of that is to tell you that we've done some research on this subject i'm not gonna sit here and try and give you an opinion that is uneducated uh again this is opinion but it's based on time on the water experience on the water so let's get into it instead of just rambling about it advantages of budget rods first let's start there why go cheap well price price is why you go cheap save some money but it's more than that there's a second built-in advantage that you may not be aware of virtually every budget friendly rod is going to have slower action so what that means when you pick up a fishing rod at the store and you shake it you see everybody shake them what somebody is trying to feel is how that rod is going to bend that's what everyone wants to know so a faster rod you're just getting the bulk of that light movement right up in the tip and then it straightens out pretty quickly the next rod will bend farther now rod's getting slower as more of that rod is loading up so one rod will just bend in the tip of course if you load up on a great big fish more of it will bend but just the tip section is softer than the rest at the other end of the spectrum you have what we call parabolic or the entire rod just turns into a big arc parabolic is as slow as you get a true arc where the entire thing is the same the less money you spend on a rod the more parabolic it will be now you can buy parabolic rods that cost a ton of money but that's just a built-in feature of a budget rod so what's the advantage of that well if you are fishing a lot of your reaction baits crankbaits in particular anything with a treble hook it's a lot harder for a fish to come off on a more parabolic rod which actually makes that parabolic style or a budget rod really really user friendly for a newer angler so not only are you saving money you are also getting a rod that is inherently easier for you to keep a fish hooked on assuming you're using a bait with treble hooks as soon as you start switching over to big single hooks looks like this that's a completely different story because then you need a rod that has more strength it's stouter that has a faster action to keep those fish hooked up but can you catch a bass on any rod absolutely so as you move up the spectrum as you pay more money what do you get besides a different look a different action well as you move up the spectrum a couple of things are going to happen the rods are going to become vastly more sensitive that is the first thing that the average well actually that's not true that's the first thing you notice on the water the first thing you notice in the store when you pick one up is that they're incredibly light weight now does that matter to the guy that goes out there once a month probably not so you probably don't need to spend a thousand dollars on a combo but if it's something that you do a lot particularly if you have any sort of injuries if you're a person that's ever hurt your wrist your elbow your shoulder anything like that the lighter the combo the easier it is for you to fish throughout the day the less likely that you'll get fatigued and that's something that a lot of people overlook all the other arguments aside about sensitivity and all that fatigue is a major factor so if you've ever had injuries where you end up getting fatigued throughout the day your shoulder gets sore and you can't flip anymore or your wrist starts getting tired you can't throw a jerk bait going to a higher end combo that literally weighs less will make your life so much easier i've brought that up so many times when i talk about flipping because my great big flipping sticks made all the difference i used to hate flipping at least i thought i did until i got the right rod turned out that i always liked flipping but i was using rods that were too heavy they were wearing me out see for as long as i've been fishing i've fished my whole life i've been a trophy bass fisherman for probably 20 years a specifically targeted monster bass even through that time i went from really low end equipment to mid-range equipment and i stayed there it wasn't until just the last few years that i really jumped into high-end tackle you guys see a lot of times in the videos tim and i using just incredibly high-end equipment and i think some people are shocked by that some people appreciate it you have to realize everyone watches right both ends of the spectrum and it's it's easy to assume that everybody feels the same way you do which is of course just not the case no matter which end of the spectrum you're on but again i waited a long time to sample high-end equipment and when i did i found some real changes in my fishing so what happens when you go to high-end gear what changes the rods are going to get inherently faster action the truly high-end ultra sensitive stuff your nrx's your edge rods your megamast destroyers uh iowa steez those rods are inherently very very fast unless they blend a rod for something specific like a crankbait but that means that the the majority of the blank does not have a lot of flex it's just up there in the tip so for some techniques that's not a great thing right for cranking for uh maybe a chatter bait possibly for a spinner bait for a lot of that reaction stuff you want some load up in the rod so you want to choose your rods accordingly you'll notice even when tim and i are using high-end gear we're not sitting on one brand or one model of rod we we pick up one rod for one thing one rod for another thing that's because we want those action changes i'm not going to try and drop shot and crankbait and flip and do all these things with a rod that that is the same so i appreciate that high-end tackle because i love the sensitivity i love the light weight and when you get on the water is where the sensitivity comes in there are guys all the time that say you know i could feel the same thing with this rod or that rod or that rod as you feel with that high-end combo and the truth is if a fish comes out and freight trains your bait that's true i could feel a bass come out and absolutely smash on a bait on the world's cheapest ugly stick or anything else but when it's winter time and you're deep fishing and the fish are just mouthing baits if you've never used a high-end rod you don't know that there are bites that you can feel on those rods that you cannot even feel on a mid-range combo you just can't they are more sensitive they really are it makes a difference so you have to find where you land in this whole thing one end or the other or somewhere in the middle and it comes down to budget lightweight sensitive it's going to matter for fatigue it's going to matter for feeling fish and then the biggest factor the biggest one to me is fun that's why you came fishing in the first place you didn't come out to the lake to be miserable right you came to the lake to get away from everything else and have a good time and i will tell you point blank that in my experience i have more fun with higher end tackle because i'm less aware of the tackle it becomes a part of my arm when i pick up a really nice combo and i'm going down the bank fishing i'm not aware of the combo i'm not realizing late that i got a bite i feel right away i stick my fish i get them in the boat i'm on to the next one i just don't even think about it and that's what you want when you're out there fishing you don't want to be stressing about your gear when you pick up lower end gear i'm aware right i go to make a cast and it won't let that bait fly the way i wanted i don't get as far i don't hit where i wanted to be or i go to pick up and i'm not sure it's a fish and then darn it that was a fish and i miss them and then the next one works perfectly and i get them but throughout the day i'm aware of my equipment because it's not behaving exactly the way i wanted when i get my gear dialed i forget that i have gear isn't that crazy that's the trade-off what is the best result of you spending an outrageous amount of money on a combo and then going to the lake what's the best thing that could happen you could forget that you own the combo because you want to cast there and you cast there you want to cast there you cast there you want to go over here and you feel a bite and you stick them and you get your fish and then you cast there and it works perfectly your ultimate goal whether you realize it or not is to not know that there's a rod in your hand and just have a good time so all of that said let's circle back around why does this matter because tim and i constantly either recommend rods in our video descriptions or link you the exact gear that we were using in our video descriptions of every video and when we do that it's intentional so i want to explain where those recommendations come from and then i'm going to make some right now at different budgets the reason why you don't see us typically recommending really really inexpensive gear is because when you get below a certain threshold a lot of the gear is extremely similar and you don't need our opinion if your budget is 20 bucks for a rod there's absolutely nothing wrong with that and you're going to catch plenty of fish on it but you don't need us to tell you which one to get you can just go get a combo and go fishing if your budget's 50 bucks for a rod or 60 bucks for a combo now you're getting into that ballpark where there are some differences but they're not huge differences right we recommended this combo recently that daiwa air decks with a sahara and that was the lowest priced combo that we'd specifically recommended at that point and it was because i picked it up and fished with it for a few days and we actually took this combo cross country with us on our entire cross-country trip and used it a bunch and i was very impressed over and over again so it actually stood out from the crowd and that's when you're gonna get a recommendation so generally speaking the threshold where all of a sudden there are real differences between combos is a hundred dollar rod or a hundred dollar reel that's where one company's got it dialed and the next one doesn't and then you you move up 20 bucks and now this company's got a dial then that one doesn't but the changes are real that's why we cut it off there at about that hundred dollar mark and at that price point the two that stand out to me today just like they have before dobbins rods makes the fury line of rods now they've got kind of a bright color to them some people don't like that they've got some green on them they're black and green but those fury rods right around that hundred dollar range are unreal they are so good for the money so if you want to step up and try nicer gear than you've used before that's one and the other one is an slx shimano came out with the slx slx rods and slx reels which is really nice they are sweet at 99 bucks apiece they are significantly different from the other rods that i've used in those price ranges it's drastic a fury and an slx in my opinion are drastically different than a lot of the price point gear that they're up against that's why we talk about them that slx real at 99 bucks here's a test for a reel there are two ways to test on one is to buy one and use it a whole bunch and see if it holds up and that's important because a reel that doesn't break down over time is super important but that one takes time the quick test that you can do is pick up an eye pick up a rod pick up a combo close your eyes ignore what combo it is and either cast it if you're not in a store you can cast it out and reel it back if you're just in a store just reel but if you can't tell the price of what's in your hand what i mean by that is i'll pick up a high-end combo sling it out there and that sucker is smooth it's light it feels great there's no vibration and then i'll pick up a really cheap combo and i'll fire that out there and it's it grinds it's harder to turn the handle you can feel the gears themselves it's completely different if you can pick up a combo somewhere in the middle and sling it out there and close your eyes and forget what combo you're using and it's smooth and it's not working against you there's your bang for the buck and i really like the slx because when i close my eyes it feels great it feels a lot like a corrado now there are some actual differences on the inside but i'm talking feel feels terrific so moving up in price from there you're going to get to the x pride and that's my next jump and it's a big jump and that's not to tell you there's not great rods in between there are but it's not my job to point out at every 20 price break what i want to do right now is tell you the rods that are like they have stepped way outside their budget in my opinion and the x pride is that next one that's just like it walks away from the crowd and the x brides have been really hard to get this year um but a lot of the models are back in stock they're 279 to 299 they are not cheap but what they are is amazing they fish i mean i'm very blessed on a lot of really high-end gear and when i just jump on the boat to go for a couple of hours and i look down i have surrounded myself with x prides without thinking about it because at 279 they fish like rods in the 400s they're really really nice rods and then there's a bunch of different options a bunch of different actions they work well they overlap well so you can pick up like a 610 medium one of my favorites or a seven two heavy or a seven two medium heavy uh or a seven six heavy or a seven seven heavy those are models that are going to do a lot of different things there's a lot of carryover of course there's rods like the 73 extra heavy that's our frog rod but it's a specific run right it's got one job for me but a rod that can do a lot of things is fantastic but those x prides at 279 they behave like a very very high end rod and that's why we talk about them a lot going just up from that this is a mega bass and we started playing with mega bass more i don't know i got my first mega ass a few years ago but i started playing with them more and more and i started trying a roachies a couple years ago then they redesigned the orochis to these in 2018 and there's a handful of models of roaches that that again i feel like they really step it up they're vastly different than the other options that surround them now you're right up i i don't want to misquote a price but i think they're right up around that 300 dollar mark the orochis i see them differently so x prides what i love about an x prize is i can pick up a model and use it for 15 different things the orochi is the opposite for me like this is the braille list that i have in my hand it is to me an amazing amazing jig rod and i use it for that niche megabass makes very nichey very action specific rods so if you're trying to get into a line of rods that's a whole different thing x pride zodius slxes furies they make rods that just cover the gamut you get a handful of rods and you're good to go but if you're a guy that already owns a ton of tackle and you're looking for a really nice flipping stick a really nice frog rod a really nice jerkbait rod just that niche rod orochis are awesome for the price to fill those very specific things if you want to try something different and then the last one the highest end i'm going to go right now is a glx and why i'm stopping at a glx today because in the past i've talked a lot about nrx's nrx is that's a g loomis by the way if you're not familiar with it let me pick it up anyway g loomis nrx and nrx is in my opinion the industry standard of sensitivity now there will be people that argue one way or another this rod is more sensitive than that or this one's more sensitive than that none of that matters what i'm saying is that it's a benchmark it's been insanely sensitive for a really long time so a lot of times when a company will come out with a rod a guy will come to argue and he's like this rod is more sensitive than an nrx and my thinking is well i don't care if it's more sensitive or not the nrx clearly the benchmark right that's what you're bringing around the market to try to compare to they're amazing they are not cheap but they are amazing and it really is different those are probably my favorite high-end rods that's what a lot of tim and i's super high-end spinning tackle has converted to as nrx's because when you're smallmouth fishing or spotted bass fishing and you're really trying to catch that giant fish and you need everything to go right it makes a difference but today one step down from an nrx is a glx the reason why i wanted to talk about that the glx's are in the 400s again it's a lot of money for a rod they are not as sensitive or as light as an nrx but they are really really sensitive and really really really light and will do a fantastic job of any job that you ever need them to do now if you're trying to go cream of the crop best of the best spend the extra money to an nrx but if you're a guy that has just always wanted an ultra sensitive rod an ultra light rod and you want to try one and that extra 100 bucks does make or break the deal glx's are fantastic the other thing about a glx is you know i'm always playing with rods i have such an addiction to them the mbr series mbr so a lot of g loomis rods end with a jwr it's a split grip handle and it's a different bend in the rod mbr stands for mag bass rod the mag bass series is really unique they're pretty stout in the mid section but the tips are way light like way lighter than you expect the 843 and the 844 mbrs are amazingly versatile rods i mean we took them cross country and i would be on one lake and i'd need to throw a fluke or a senko and i'd tie it on my 844 and then i'd get to the next lake and i'd be in a pinch and i'm like oh i want to throw a spinnerbait i don't want to re-tie i tie it on the same rod and then all of a sudden fish are blowing up and i'm like forget it give me that spook and you tie your topwater on the same rod because the tip section is so soft that if i'd hit a topwater fish and i just didn't force it that tip would absorb but if i'm throwing a spinnerbait and a great big one eats it like what happened on chickamauga then i could really hit him hard i could get through that soft tip into the backbone and stick that fish too that mbr series is really interesting to me and i will be playing with those a lot more i wish there were more mbr actions in the lineup there's only a few but you talk about versatile rods those are awesome rods now glx is not an inexpensive rod but it's a rod that can do so many things i was very very impressed to them because i'm normally very nichey you know i have my favorite jerkbait rod my favorite frog rod and i'll overlap but i like the specific actions i like my jig rods you guys know that but i was impressed that in a pinch i could tie a dozen different baits onto the same rod and just go and make it work so again let's recap there are some drastic differences do you need to spend a thousand bucks on a combo or 1200 or 1500 or 2000 on a jdm combo no you do not if you do it will you feel a difference you will they are more sensitive they are lighter they are smoother and they just become a part of you and everything just flows the frustration goes away can you get into the mid-range and get some amazing gear that will do almost the same thing you sure can and you know we're linking all that stuff i just talked about down there in the video description guys that are just coming in or on a budget or don't fish as often are you doing just fine with the gear you've got absolutely you don't need to have guilt you don't need to argue with the next guy don't even sweat it just go fishing because the gear works the right answer is is it worth it yes do you need to do it no that's the final answer enjoy the gear you've got if you want to step out if it's in your budget we've got some recommendations for you if not keep on trucking have a blast because that is what bass fishing is about if you guys enjoyed the video hit the like button subscribe to the channel and we'll talk to you soon you

Channel: TacticalBassin

Views: 436,337

Rating: 4.8748131 out of 5

Keywords: fishing rod, fishing reel, best rod, best reel, fishing rods, fishing pole, best fishing pole, budget reel, budget rod, gear guide, buyer's guide, fishing guide, fishing, bass fishing, trout fishing, inshore, saltwater, freshwater, fishing rod review, fishing reel review, review, daiwa, 13 fishing, abu Garcia, G Loomis, Shimano, Megabass, bass rod, bass fishing tips, beginner bass fishing, beginner fishing, tacticalbassin, tactical bassin

Id: bCjo2cuZRWI

Length: 27min 28sec (1648 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 26 2019