Suitable Jigging Rod - All Purpose

[Gerry Zagorski]

A few questions and some suggestions.

- What reel are you pairing the rod to? The reason I ask is because if you're paring it with a older and heavier reel, you'd sort of be wasting your money pairing it with the new lighter weight composite rods. You also want the rod to balance with the reel...

- What is your primary use for this set up? If it's jigging for tog the lighter it is weight wise the better and it should be matched with a light reel. Light is key with tog jigging since you'll often times be fishing with light jigs around 1 ounce or so and you won't get the feel you need with a heavier set up... The heavier set up will however work fine for jigging Fluke and Stripers where you're using heavier jigs.

- At the end of the day, if I'm in your shoes I would look to go light as possible, both the rod and reel.... The reason I say this is because with a light weight set up you can use it to jig tog and Fluke or Striper fish with it as well... That won't be the case if you go heavier which will be fine for Striper and Fluke but fall short when you're Tog Jigging.

- What is your budget?

Answer these questions and you'll get more pointed suggestions.

Typical tog jigging rod is a one piece, not a two piece rod, 7 foot Medium or Light but if you want to use it for Fluke and Striper jigging, I'd lean towards medium. The rod should also have a longer fore grip since you want to be able to get your hand up on it to lift the rod rather then just using your wrist. This also comes in handy when you're yo yo jigging off the bottom for Stripers or swinging a fish into the boat..