special purpose rods - bait dropping

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mousefisher
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special purpose rods - bait dropping

Post by mousefisher »

The fishing world is awash with special purpose rods. We have rods for virtually everything. Jig rods, worm rods, wade fishing rods, boat rods, long surf rods, crappie rods, etc...

Recently I have been researching dropping baits. Using a kayak to drop a bait beyond casting range is, as far as I know, a very common method of "kayak" fishing. While it is very common in the surf, I suspect it is also common elsewhere. But the surf is what I was researching. When casting from a beach, a long surf rod is designed to chunk out a moderately heavy bait and to keep the line away from the shore break. Now when a kayak is used, that equation changes a bit. I can drop off larger baits with heavier sinkers (oz have changed to pounds) - and honestly my current long shore rods are a poor compromise at best (being mostly focused on the casting aspect rather than dealing with a decent sized fish or even fighting in a spider weight). I have found some slightly better options, but none that I really feel are designed for the task - especially when dealing with larger baits for sharks.

Anyway was wondered if anyone else has thought of this and has found better mouse traps. I have found some special purpose rods that might be exactly what I am looking for - but they seem to be only marketed in South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia. Seems to me with the amount of coast Texas has, someone is bound to have made something and marketed here as well. FWIW the ones I have found were marketed for drone fishing, but it seems to me that dropping bait is dropping bait - be it from a kayak or a drone. About the only thing in their design that seems actually drone oriented is they are all 3 piece and designed to be easily transported in a car. If you are transporting a kayak, you probably have room for 1 piece or 2 piece rods.
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Neumie
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Re: special purpose rods - bait dropping

Post by Neumie »

mousefisher wrote:The fishing world is awash with special purpose rods. We have rods for virtually everything. Jig rods, worm rods, wade fishing rods, boat rods, long surf rods, crappie rods, etc...

Recently I have been researching dropping baits. Using a kayak to drop a bait beyond casting range is, as far as I know, a very common method of "kayak" fishing. While it is very common in the surf, I suspect it is also common elsewhere. But the surf is what I was researching. When casting from a beach, a long surf rod is designed to chunk out a moderately heavy bait and to keep the line away from the shore break. Now when a kayak is used, that equation changes a bit. I can drop off larger baits with heavier sinkers (oz have changed to pounds) - and honestly my current long shore rods are a poor compromise at best (being mostly focused on the casting aspect rather than dealing with a decent sized fish or even fighting in a spider weight). I have found some slightly better options, but none that I really feel are designed for the task - especially when dealing with larger baits for sharks.

Anyway was wondered if anyone else has thought of this and has found better mouse traps. I have found some special purpose rods that might be exactly what I am looking for - but they seem to be only marketed in South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia. Seems to me with the amount of coast Texas has, someone is bound to have made something and marketed here as well. FWIW the ones I have found were marketed for drone fishing, but it seems to me that dropping bait is dropping bait - be it from a kayak or a drone. About the only thing in their design that seems actually drone oriented is they are all 3 piece and designed to be easily transported in a car. If you are transporting a kayak, you probably have room for 1 piece or 2 piece rods.
Not my forte, but I would reach out to Castaway Tackle in Corpus Christi. They specialize in surf fishing the Texas coast. They don't have a webpage so you'll have to google them.
SWFinatic
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Re: special purpose rods - bait dropping

Post by SWFinatic »

Nick at Breakaway has 30 years or more of surf fishing experience and can also help. I'd reach out to him if I had any questions. He's the man.
https://www.breakawaytackleusa.com/
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impulse
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Re: special purpose rods - bait dropping

Post by impulse »

Take any decent boat rod with a reel that can hold lots of 30-50-80# line and you're good to go.

The only caveat I found is that some reels, the clicker doesn't prevent "professional over-run" (backlash) as I'm getting tossed around by the wind and the waves on my way out. In that case, I don't free spool it with the clicker, I let off on the drag with the clicker on. That caveat becomes less important if you're fishing with others who can mind the rod while you're paddling the bait. But I'm usually alone when I'm fishing the beach. And in that respect, the reel is a lot more mission critical than the rod. You're paddling the bait out anyway.

Or you can spend several hundred dollars on a special purpose setup that may and may not be marginally better.

It's also important to have a good rod holder, and for that I use a 1-1/2" PVC pipe, about 5' long with a 45 degree point sawn at one end to be driven into the sand. Drill a 5/8" hole about halfway up the rod holder and use a piece of rebar to help drive it in, and to remove it when it's time to leave. Of course, if you're lucky enough to fish where they allow driving on the beach, there's all kinds of specialty (spelled $$$ expensive) gear to mount on your vehicle.

BTW, one place I have to give the nod to Euro fishermen is their 12' (and longer) graphite carp rods. They make an excellent surf casting rod, usually for a lot less money than a similar graphite surf spinning rod. And some of them are light enough to cast for hours without wearing myself out. Or you can get a much heavier one for casting heavier weights and leaving them out.
Last edited by impulse on Thu Apr 01, 2021 9:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Neumie
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Re: special purpose rods - bait dropping

Post by Neumie »

SWFinatic wrote:Nick at Breakaway has 30 years or more of surf fishing experience and can also help. I'd reach out to him if I had any questions. He's the man.
https://www.breakawaytackleusa.com/
Crap, this is who I meant.
SWFinatic
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Re: special purpose rods - bait dropping

Post by SWFinatic »

Neumie wrote:
SWFinatic wrote:Nick at Breakaway has 30 years or more of surf fishing experience and can also help. I'd reach out to him if I had any questions. He's the man.
https://www.breakawaytackleusa.com/
Crap, this is who I meant.
Castaway sounded like a bait shop to me lol.
BTW mousefisher welcome to the forum. Nick also has a YouTube channel where he gives daily beach reports and has other good surf fishing info. https://www.youtube.com/c/Nickaway
mousefisher
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Re: special purpose rods - bait dropping

Post by mousefisher »

I am betting that an overhead fishing platform above a truck is going to be hard to beat - just not really ready to go there (yet). Right now have to rigs under construction, they will be based on fairly cheep penn boat rods and some much less inexpensive reels and line. That said, pictures online are showing people with the overhead fishing platforms still using long rods and significantly more expensive reals (offshore marlin reels I think). Not really planning on targeting a 14' hammerhead, so I think I am safe for now.

I get down to Corpus occasionally (family there), so will check out that rod shop. Perhaps it is because of another hobby (that shall not be named), but I find it funny putting $400-500 worth of reel and line on a $40 rod. If I ever move up to the next step, $1000+ for a reel and line probably really should not be on a $40 rod. I guess I never completely went over to the dark side and realized how funny it was to be fishing from a $25k boat with a $60 rod/reel. (this was 30 years ago - so inflation would probably make a lot of those numbers a LOT worse now).
---
When I bay fished a lot, I generally fished 4 rods. 3 where fairly cheep that I used for live mullet and almost every trip I had to pull out a backup because one of the cheep reels would fail. Then I would have one nice rod/reel for artificial. Short of hopeless backlashes, never really needed to use it's backup. Anyway, I know cheep can usually get the job done, but also know that it tends to be a lot more likely to give me headaches as well - was constantly working on one or another between trips. Still the cheep rods never really let me down, they just weighed more and had less sensitivity-not a huge problem when soaking mullet.
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