What Is The Best Smallmouth Rod?

What's up everybody? Welcome back to another rod bending series. This one's an interesting one because it was a requested one. And it's just basically small mouth rods, which is tough to do right because there's a ton of techniques. Some regionality, I would say the small mouth fishing for sure, like with different techniques that shine and different rods that are popular. But what sparked this discussion was, is there's already a new one that's already got some traction amongst the small mouth of fishing out of the world that say this thing is a special special rod. This is the new G-limus GLX. This is a 822S, the DSR. So this is a 610 extra fast, mag medium spinning rod. I don't know because I haven't fished it, but this is customer stuff. We turned this rod quite a bit right away and you're getting rumblings out there now. The gussies of the world, Josh Douglas of the world, people I'm lucky enough to know are all backing up the statement saying that this thing is super, super special and we should be all paying attention to it. I haven't fished with it, but I haven't been in on the wall here. I will say this. I weighed it and I thought something was wrong with our scale. This is a 2.8 ounce rod and it feels like it. With the minimalistic handle that's on this and this new blank from the new GLX family, which is rumored to be just an NRX without the plus side of it or whatever, these things feel electric and I love the action so far so much so I 've got some already. But I don't have this rod. So we're going to go bend this one. This kicks off our small mouth must have rods. I'm going to call it that right. Must have small mouth rods, but we're going to burn through a bunch of different rods we sell here at Omniafishing that are an R opinion and our customers opinion. Small mouth must have starting off with the GLX 822S DSR drop shot rod. All right. I'm here with that 822S drop shot rod. As you can see, the tip on this rod is amongst the wildest tips I've seen on the rod wall. I am putting literally next to no effort into moving this. I'm just like kind of shaking my wrist a little bit and you see the tip time and dances around there on this rod quite a bit. It's not a solid tip rod, but man, it sure acts like it. And when you give it a load up, it actually loads up. It's way more powerful than it looks when you're bending it with your hands around the floor. It almost seemed like moderate and super light powered when you bend on the floor, but it's got way more. That mag medium shows when you're in this scenario. That whole top section of the rod, the one, two, three, four, like six guides of it, is almost like not there when you go to set the hook. I can honestly see why this would be a really high percentage landing rod, which is small mouth. That's the key a lot of times. I think the big factor with this thing would be light line and light wire hooks . If you were a light line and light wire hooks, if it really, really finessed presentation and that drop shot straight up and down stuff or demeeky stuff, if you want to straight up and down, I now see why we're hearing already about this brand new rod as being a very special small mouth rod. All right, next up, we have a rod from the small mouth whisperer himself, Mr. Mark Zona. I've had the pleasure of fishing with Mark and seeing him do this in person. He is, in my opinion, the master of power fishing for small mouth. That's because of his network and all the places he goes and the amount of time he spends on world class small mouth fisheries. He's always trying to get him to bite stuff opposite from the way a lot of the tournament guys do it a lot of times with their ultra finessie and they're really getting super light line. He does that as good as anybody else can do it too. The fun thing about Zona is he likes to have a good time. This is his tube cracking rod. This is, as you can imagine, when Lewis came out with these, this was the most popular rod for us in this series. People jumped on it. Obviously, a little regionality there with Minnesota being our home state for omniafishing, but the small mouth fans that we have in our circle have definitely given this rod a lot of great feedback. The technique tube cracking is something you might want to check out on YouTube . Go ahead and check out Zona's YouTube there and you can see what he does. That's really putting a lot of action and speed and aggressiveness into fishing the staple bait of small mouth fishing. Maybe the most staple bait of small mouth fishing ever, the tube. It's not going to be a lightweight one. This isn't a finesse rod like the previous rod I did. This one's coming in at 4.3 ounces. It is balanced quite nice. It's got a strange handle on it. You have no threads or anything up above, which I do like that part, but I am a foregripper. It is the hump back here a little bit more. This rod is going to shine if you are a split finger person. If you just split your fingers on the real seat, that's where this thing is really going to shine. If you are above it like me, it's fine because you do get leverage from that hump there so that it does keep your wrist straight. Really cool rod. Like I said, 4.3 ounces and it's a technique specific rod for small mouth fishing aggressively. Let's go bend the LUSE signature series Mark Zona tube cracking rod. As discussed, we have that Mark Zona tube cracking rod here. Load this thing up and see this thing has a much faster action than the previous rod. I don't even know how much it's not that much faster. This has a lot more power to it. This rod is a much quicker tip up there. It seems like where the other one got in the backbone a little further down that GLX. That's because of the light line applications of that one. This one is reach out and touch them far away. Bomb your bait out as far as you can and get aggressive and crack on that tube and set the hook from far away. You're going to get into that hook from far away. The tips light enough that you can throw smaller hooks if you wanted to. Smaller tubes if you didn't want to crack on a big giant tube. You can still get away with a smaller one. This would be a great rod, honestly. If you want a universal rod tube for small mouth fishing, maybe if you're drifting with a bigger weight or something like that too. I know a lot of people struggle with that. Here are customers that are buying really light powered smallmouth equipment and they go somewhere like the Great Lakes. You're trying to have a half ounce weight down their drag and then drifting in some big waves. Really versatile rod here. This would be a good rod for a Milax guy or a Great Lakes guy. Check out this Lou's Signature Series Markzona Tube Cracking rod. Alright, we would be remissed if we didn't touch on this one. This is Seth B iders 7.6 Hair Jig Niko rod and the Tatula Elite AGS rods. So these feature carbon fiber guides. That's DYWA's proprietary carbon fiber guide train. These guides are insanely, insanely sensitive. If you're not familiar with them or haven't fished them. I've even been told this by other rod manufacturers have nothing to do with DY WA. These guides are absolutely unbelievable. They come at a major expense. They're expensive to manufacture. You do have to be a touch carefuller with them. I do have to say I own some of the spinning models myself and I've had nothing but good luck with the spinning models. I haven't had any issues with durability as far as spinning models go at all. I think these guides are more sensitive than even a really stiff line or a really high end blank. So if feels what you're going for, I challenge you to try out some AGS guides. You'll like them. This rod is a staple for a reason, right? Seth's affiliated with Omnia. He obviously put a lot of small model techniques on the map there for a national scale to show people what was going on. Hair jig right away. Even though nowadays he's favoring Chris Johnson's hair j ig rod for that exact technique. But this one has become more of a small-mouth staple as far as being a versatile all-around small-mouth fishing weapon. If you want to throw a drop shot on a longer dropper, this would be a great rod for that. Ned rigging at a distance. This is a rod for that. Scoping at a distance, which you're seeing happen a lot now. If you want a long rod for scoping where you're making super long casts of those fish, this has been a great rod for that because it's insanely light. This thing came in at 3.8 ounces. So 3.8 ounces, so it came in under 4 ounces. It does have a 4 grip on it. And I will tell you the way you hold this rod, it does feel like the tip section is very light and alive. You don't feel it. The weight on it. It's not tip heavy at all. It's balanced out beautifully. You get a nice reel on this thing, which I would suggest a larger size. I get 300, this being a 300, 3000 or 4000 size spinning reel. And this thing is going to balance like a dream, cast a mile and fight fish beautifully. Lots of small-mouth techniques come into play on this one. And it is why it's considered a staple amongst the small-mouth rods. Let's go bend the Seth Fighter to Tula Elite AGS rod. Alright, so I'm here with this Tula Elite AGS, the Seth Fighter rod. This is his hair jig and Niko rod. But it can do a lot of stuff. Honestly, you can do a lot of lot of stuff. And we're finding that out the more people buy these things and use them. It is a small-mouth staple, possibly one of our most popular small-mouth staples. As you can see here, the rod's plenty fast up in the tip section. But it is not insanely razor fast that you couldn't get away with really lightweight applications. If you want to go really small, this rod will handle it. But this rod isn't too soft that you can't get into maybe a bigger weighted drop shot on a drift or even some tubes with some decent-sized weights in them. It depends on what you're going for. I know heavy nets have become a thing on the Great Lakes as well. Lots of different applications for small-mouth for this thing would shine. One of them that comes to mind for me, that we started doing a little bit with this rod that I had a lot of confidence with, with spybaiting. This rod does really well at that. And pendulant. I don't know if you want to say that. Swinbait fishing with tiny little swimba its. That pendulum motion back in the boat. I had a lot of luck using this at like Sturgeon Bay when we went out there. This is a great rod for that. My landing percentage was high. But I'm talking the really small swimbait has light wire hooks, that kind of stuff. So if you're looking for finesse applications, you want to throw a way out there. But still be versatile enough to fish decent-sized weights for some bottom contact stuff. This is a killer rod for all those applications. If there's a small-mouth staple rod that I've been so far, that's the most versatile. Might be this one here. Check out Seth Biders, Tatula AGS Elite Rod. Alright, next up we have a controversial one here because it's brand new, ish. But I've heard a lot about this rod. It's a topic actually we saw. I saw Bassmaster touch on recently. It's no secret if you're a small-mouth ang ler, what I'm going to talk about next. But the Carolina rig has become a staple amongst small-mouth fishermen again. I'm not saying it never was or it wasn't for a while or anything like that. But I would say publicly you're hearing more and more and more about the Carolina rig again with small-mouth. Some of the famed small-mouth fisheries, it's taken top 10 checks. I don't know how many it's knocked down for winds, but I know it's been up there as a playing factor for small-mouth fishing. There was actually a rod in the St. Cry family that I know for a fact in the victory family that I know we've sold a ton of for that specific application. We're currently out of stock, so we grab the physics model. This one here is actually on the legend tournament blanks. It's a little higher end. It's going to feel a little bit more crisp. It has more of an unpainted feel to it as well. It's got that carbon fiber handle to it. This is a very, very polarizing handle here as you see now over the internet, how people feel about these. But this is true carbon fiber. It is not a plastic handle. It's a carbon fiber handle. It does have TPE laid in it so it's not slippery at all or anything like that. It is quite comfortable. The rod does feel alive. They come at a price, but if you're looking to be offshore feeling around, you want to check out this rod. Obviously, if you want to save yourself some money, I would look at it in that victory lineup because that's a screaming deal for a U.S. made rod as well. But if you're on the higher end, if you're a bougie angler, you might want to check out this physics version here. But I had to touch on something with the Carolina rig. I know there's some rods out there from like megabass, G. Loomis, and Daiaua, and Shimano, and blah, blah, blah, so on so forth. They're really popular. Sea rig rods are bottom contact casting rods. That's one of the series I'm going to ask you guys for your input on. Throw us some ideas you have of what some staple smallmouth casting rods are. We wanted to touch on this one because it is growing a popularity with us, and we know St. Crowe's got an incredibly popular offshore action in this similar model, which is a 7-5 medium heavy fast. It's perfect for reaching offshore and touching them. So let's go bend the St. Crowe physics 7-5 medium heavy fast. Alright, I'm here with that St. Crowe physics at 7-5 medium heavy fast action. As you can see, it's fast action. I love when the description on the blank matches how the action is on the wall. You can see this thing is really fast. I will say this big surprise. I didn't weigh it in the front half for the first half of the video. I did it on the way over to the wall here, so I apologize for that. But 5.6 ounces. Let me tell you something. Kip said the exact same thing. It doesn't feel like it. People do get hung up on weight a lot, and I understand for good reason. I can be the same way at times. Balance is a big thing. And I will tell you, they definitely counterbalance these rods. The outward end of this rod does not feel heavy at all. This thing does feel super lightweight out there. I know this blank is insanely lightweight. So for a longer rod, this thing feels great. If you're looking for a sensitivity way out there and some fast hook setting action far away from the boat, this would be an absolute killer Carolina rig rod. Honestly, dragging other stuff too, like a wobble head. A lot of techniques we're starting to see. I would even say this would be a great one. We're seeing a lot of it. I know, but look, there's heavy poop baits and things like that. I'm going to bomb one of those way out there and let it sink down into a water column. This would be a great rod for that application as well. So cool rod from St. Croix, like I said before. Look for this same action and power in the victory lineup. If you're looking to save a little money, we're out of it when we shot this video. I know we've sold a whole bunch for that application. Let us know below also what you think some of the staple offshore Carolina style casting rods would be for small moths. Alright, we would be remiss if we didn't do a really high-end bougie one. And this one isn't just to be here because it's high in bougie. This probably of all the rods I've talked about has been talked about the most as being like the small-mouth rod. Amongst a lot of small-mouth aficionados. People we deal with here at OmniFishing. A lot of terminors you all follow or just rod snobs out there. This is the NRX 872. This is a jig and worm rod, but it's a medium extra fast spinning rod. It's got a really, really fast tip on it. This thing came in at 3.5 ounces. It is light. It feels light. It feels lighter than 3.5, honestly. That GLX we did earlier, obviously, was insanely, insanely light. But this feels a lot more versatile as far as like, I want to put a little pressure on the fish when I hook them. It feels like a big fish rod. This would be a great like Ned Riggan rod. This would be a good dropping rod. If you don't mind that little extra length there, if you're right over top of them with a decent size weight, I should say. A lot of techniques that are coming out there where you're on the bottom. This would be a really, really, really slick rod for those applications. Let's go bend the 872 NRX jig and worm rod. All right, here we are with that. The jig and worm rod here, the NRX, the 872. As you see here, the tip is fast. It's not as fast as I pictured it because when I was bending it with just the line, it seemed like a razor sharp tip on it. Once I'm getting into the backbone here, you can see it comes out of it. That's not a bad thing as far as what I would be fishing with with braid to a leader. I don't mind when it gets into the backbone if it gives me a little bit more blank to fight the fish with, especially at the side of the boat with small mouth. I don't want the rod to just have the tip bending when I'm fighting fish to the side of the boat. This rod feels like it's an expensive rod, right? You hold it in your hand and you're like, man, this thing's really, really, really nice. It's got a perfect action for my opinion, bottom contact stuff that is not in that super and sandy lightweight stuff. The advantage to this rod is it's so sensitive and it's so light that you could get away with that really, really light white stuff if you want it. But to me, what where this rod would shine is when you're not overly finessing him. You're actually kind of power fishing him a little bit and you're using some bottom contact techniques. I'm not saying you're power fishing a Ned Rig by any means, but if you're trying to get that Ned Rig on the bottom, you're not catching him on the fall like a lot of people talk about with a Ned Rig, you're actually trying to get this thing in a target zone or area. It's betting smallmouth for sure. If you want some power and you want to get a hook and a fish from far away that 's down there in the water column, this would be one of the finest rods I think you could pick up to do that with. Pretty impressed here holding it in my hand. I can see now why a lot of G. Loomis fans talk about this rod as being the smallmouth rod. This is the 872s NRX Jig and Wormrod. All right, last one of this part one of this smallmouth series. Like I said, I know I've said it in other videos before, but I mean it in this one. There's a whole bunch of rods that I'm surprised we didn't do in this, that I think are smallmouth staples, that I'm going to bring up in the next video, I promise. But I want to hear from you guys what some smallmouth staples are. We want to see if we're not thinking of something and we're missing something. Let's spark a little conversation here about smallmouth rods. I know that's sort of such a general statement calling a smallmouth rod. At first we had this idea, I was like, that leaves us down a wormhole like crazy. But the more we're looking at it, the more we're seeing there is legitimate argument over there of like rods you must have if you're a smallmouth angler. This one right here was probably considered one of the most value buys in this whole bunch. Along with that zone of tube cracking rod, this one here is the Zodiac 7.6 light moderate fast. I think the model number on it is the ZDS 7.6 LA. It's moderate fast light power and moderate fast. This would be a fuzzball rod. If you want to throw really, really small hair jigs really far and you don't want to buy a $500 rod to do it, this is considered one of the finest rods to do that with. It's not a four grip rod, which is a lot of you know bugs me, but I will say it gives you plenty of real seat up here. If you're hand above, if you're like me, if you're a split finger, beautifully comfortable real seat, whatever, if you just want blank contact with your fingers, awesome rod. This thing feels really lightweight in hand. It came in at 3.7 ounces. So it's not as light as I thought it was going to be because you pick this thing up and it's insanely light, but when you get into the threes man, this thing weighs like next to nothing. It's beautiful. It's a tip weighs nothing. It feels super moderate with just the line on it, bend in it. We're going to go bend it on the wall and see how this zodiac does. Remember, I want to hear from a lot of you what some of the must have small mouth rods you think are out there. But when you list it, let us know to what actions or sorry, what techniques you 're deploying with the rods as well. I know there's a lot out there that I could set are coming to my mind that I was surprised to make this first list. We look at expanding this series because it does seem to be like there's some small mouth rods out there that are a must have. Let's help out the people that are just getting into catching brown ones. Let's go bend the zodiac 7-6 light power moderate fast. Alright, here with our last one of this part one of the small mouth must have. It's been a lot of Shimano and G-Loomis in this one. I'm not going to lie. We did have Seth fighters rod jump in there with that die walk. Obviously, Zona had to throw his name in the head on this one too with his signature series rod. But this one here is a screaming deal for all you hair jiggers out there. Honestly, it'd be a great little spy bait rod as well. I tend to lose a lot of fish on a spy bait, so this would be a great rod for that. Light power moderate fast action and man, it is moderate. It feels moderate when you're bending on the wall here. I mean, I mean that. I can feel a tip section pulling back to me on there if I lightly lift up on it . It's not fully, I get why they're saying moderate fast. There is a tip section in this rod. It isn't just a fold over. But power is, I would say, you know, a little bit more than I thought after having some line on it, but it is light power. If you want to get some light line and fire something really, really far, this is a really cool rod. I'm more impressed with it bending on the wall than I was on the floor, which is lying on it with my hands. It felt kind of moderate and actionless and just kind of like a hair jig rod that you're just going to whip a hair jig along way so to do nothing else with. I take that back on this one. I think you could do some other stuff with it. The tip is alive enough that I think you could get away with some other light line techniques as well. I can see why this would be one of those rods listed in there. If you have somebody in your life that's getting into brown bass fishing or you yourself and don't want to spend the big, big bucks, this is definitely a must- have smallmouth rod for sure. Stay tuned for more on this smallmouth topic. And like I said, please let us know what some of your favorite smallmouth rods are and what applications you 're using them for. [Music] (upbeat music)