Find us on Facebook!
Just got back into fishing after many many years (mostly fished catfish and crappie). Moved to an area with a large shallow river and have been wading after smallmouth and had some luck so far. My 25 yr old ML rod from Target that's had a few inches broken off over the years and is down to three guides just isn't cutting it! I've been fishing tubes but just recently tried some Texas rigged Senkos and really starting hitting them good. I've had a couple deeply hooked with Tubes due I think to not really feeling the bite and I want to avoid that in the future as much as possible. Also missed a lot of fish due to not being able to set the hook quick enough.
Question is the 703 is rated for tubes and the 704 for Senkos. I would like to go after largemouth in some of the surrounding lakes too. Would I be better off getting the 704S? Seems a lot of opinions on the net is that these are a touch over rated so I'm leaning towards the 704. I'll be mostly wading and bank fishing though I hope to get a Kayak soon.
Thanks!
by over rated I meant that some think the action is a little less than they expected (ie Med when the rod says Med Heavy).
Guess what I'm looking for is a good all around rod that I can learn a few techniques with and then go from there.
Thanks again!
The XL 704 sounds like it would be the best bet for you especially if you are wanting a little bit more back bone. Either way you will like the rod it will just come down to personal preference.
If your gonna go with a 703 that would be base off of how hard of a hook setter you are, and the typical line size you use. If you plane on using line as low as 6lbs then I would go with the 703, because you want a rod that can relieve stress on the line. But if you want a rod that can be all around and handle a good strong hookset with 10lb plus line without having one of those berkley trilene commercial with the line breaking I would use the 704. For myself personally anything with an open hook gets lighter rods do the decrease in need to do a sweeping hookset and just doing a reel set. I use a heavier spinning rod like 704 for baits with hooks covered in plastic and .
Hope this helps
Thanks for the input guys! I got a little impatient and ordered the 703S before I saw your replies. The rod will be here Friday so I'll determine if I want to keep it or exchange it at that time. The more reading I do I think I'll be happy with the slightly lighter action of the 703 for the river smallies. Plus that will give me a good excuse to get a baitcast setup for the lake largemouth. So it's a win-win really :-)
I didn't have any trouble with hook sets with the t-rigged 4" Senko on the old ML rod so I think I'll be ok there. I think I was missing a lot of softer strikes on the tubes though.
Thanks again!
Got the 703S today. Wow!! I was worried about purchasing a rod without being able to fondle it first. It had a perfect feel and fit for my hands. Compared to the Mojo, Bucoo, Veritas, etc I tried it was miles ahead. In my admittedly limited experience Lamiglas hit it out of the park with these.
However, I decided that the action was on the light side and will be returning it for the 704S for a little more backbone.