Thread: 10 ft or longer fishing rods update.

I don't give up on challenges very often. That included learning to fish with 10 foot plus rods on a 12 foot kayak. I am now proud to say I have a two rod spider rig. I have a third rod holder at a 90 degree angle to the gunwale. When I accidentally catch a crappie, I can swing to the net and put the rod in the third rod holder (straight up and down) and manage lenth just fine. If by chance I have line twist at the tip, I can reach the the joint that seperates the pieces. One of the other things I have adopted, and many of you probably do this already, but I put a string bobber stop on my line before tying on a minnow rig or tightline rig. I can mark this at the depth I want to fish and put the bobber stop on the top of the water. I make my own with a nail knot tool and coffee stirers. I have fun just sitting in my man cave with the dog.

Thank you for your relpy. I have a favorite, an 8' "float-n-fly" rod I use for just about everything. I bought it for smallmouth fishing, but found it will work for crappie, trout and even caught a sheephead in Florida with it. I purchased the yak on Memorial day of this year. (F&S Shadowcaster) my first time out, I took the F&F and it was a disaster. I caught a couple of nice smallies on it, but struggled getting them in and dealing with retying. I asked for help on here when a night trip for crappie was spent dealing with that 8' rod than enjoying a great night of fsihing. "Downsize" was the consensus view of the group.I did purchasing a 5' dock shooter and a 4.5' UL and managment was great. I had some very relaxing night trip sitting and fishing on the yak. But, I had read the larger crappie would spit the hook as soon as it felt the resistance of the rod, and that's when I decided to learn how to use a 10' noodle rod. The key for me landing fish coming to the boat on a 10' rod was a net (I use a rubber trout net). I leave enough line out (about the lenghth of the rod) and raise the tip up to get the fish close to the yak. Once the crappie is in the net I put the rod the the 90 degree rod holder and work from there.

Originally Posted by hangout

I had difficulty to get fish back to my kayak when I began to use 10' long rod. Then I tried a gaff-like tool to pull fish back to kayak, not reeling it back. I do loose some big one. It works great. since I lost my magic tool onetime I never fished with a rod longer than 8' from 10' kayak.