Hi All,
Sorry for the long love letter to the walleye... I am thinking of getting a pair of downrigger rods for lake E, and would appreciate an advice/suggestion from seasoned pros. I thought it is a good time to ask this as some of you are bored anyways
Long story long, my current set up for Lake O (and what I originally wanted to be for Lake E as well) includes 6x Okuma 10ft MH rods with big game mono, with which I run 4x rods on downrigger for deeper dives and 2x rods with TX-22 for trouts. These are technically dipsy diver rods but they do a great job on lake O as either downrigger or planer board rod as well. When I used these on lake E on downrigger, I could barely see a bite at one point, and at some other times, with bigger and wilder walleye, I could see a bite and a walleye would pop up the release.
So I kinda figured out that, other than the lighter releases, I should have a much lighter rods for Erie if I want to feel the fish fighting and not to drag semi-dead walleye into a boat with a towing stick. So my question is, what is your opinion as to what is the best rod to use on downrigger on Lake E such that it will feel the bites much better than the hard sticks and will feel the fish fighting? Ideally I want it to be 9ft or longer (because my walleye rigs are long) and not too beefy, so I sort-of narrowed this down to these choices. What do you guys think?
1. New 2020 Shimano TDR 8.6ft power ML, 8-17lb, nice and wobbly tip, $45 at SAIL.
(So far I think this is candidate 1)
2. Ugly Stik 8”3 ft or 9 ft power L, 8-20 lb, $79, got my hands on it, feels heavier and more beefy than TDR.
3. Eagle Claw Starfire 8.6 or 10ft ($35-$40), the yellow ones, these ones I could not hold in my hand because there is no store in the area that has these but people are complaining that there is too much flex on then... which is maybe precisely what would make it a good lake E rod?
4. Can I use the 9+ feet salmon/steelhead casting rods (that are not made from graphite) M or ML for this? Basically, throw a small Penn or Okuma on them and that’s it...
5. I would not mind entertaining a trade/swap for a pair of my Okumas or other rods into some lighter power rods... In case anyone is interested, plz msg me on this one.
I should mention that I had looked into the brand-new 2020 Talora 9ft light power TLA90L2A, don't want to spend almost $200 for a rod like that. Not a fan of Daiwa Wilderness also but still might get a few from Outfitters...
Thank you in advance!
Vlad
Sorry for the long love letter to the walleye... I am thinking of getting a pair of downrigger rods for lake E, and would appreciate an advice/suggestion from seasoned pros. I thought it is a good time to ask this as some of you are bored anyways
Long story long, my current set up for Lake O (and what I originally wanted to be for Lake E as well) includes 6x Okuma 10ft MH rods with big game mono, with which I run 4x rods on downrigger for deeper dives and 2x rods with TX-22 for trouts. These are technically dipsy diver rods but they do a great job on lake O as either downrigger or planer board rod as well. When I used these on lake E on downrigger, I could barely see a bite at one point, and at some other times, with bigger and wilder walleye, I could see a bite and a walleye would pop up the release.
So I kinda figured out that, other than the lighter releases, I should have a much lighter rods for Erie if I want to feel the fish fighting and not to drag semi-dead walleye into a boat with a towing stick. So my question is, what is your opinion as to what is the best rod to use on downrigger on Lake E such that it will feel the bites much better than the hard sticks and will feel the fish fighting? Ideally I want it to be 9ft or longer (because my walleye rigs are long) and not too beefy, so I sort-of narrowed this down to these choices. What do you guys think?
1. New 2020 Shimano TDR 8.6ft power ML, 8-17lb, nice and wobbly tip, $45 at SAIL.
(So far I think this is candidate 1)
2. Ugly Stik 8”3 ft or 9 ft power L, 8-20 lb, $79, got my hands on it, feels heavier and more beefy than TDR.
3. Eagle Claw Starfire 8.6 or 10ft ($35-$40), the yellow ones, these ones I could not hold in my hand because there is no store in the area that has these but people are complaining that there is too much flex on then... which is maybe precisely what would make it a good lake E rod?
4. Can I use the 9+ feet salmon/steelhead casting rods (that are not made from graphite) M or ML for this? Basically, throw a small Penn or Okuma on them and that’s it...
5. I would not mind entertaining a trade/swap for a pair of my Okumas or other rods into some lighter power rods... In case anyone is interested, plz msg me on this one.
I should mention that I had looked into the brand-new 2020 Talora 9ft light power TLA90L2A, don't want to spend almost $200 for a rod like that. Not a fan of Daiwa Wilderness also but still might get a few from Outfitters...
Thank you in advance!
Vlad