Looking to purchase a new set of trolling rods. Trying to decide between 4 rods. Denali Myraid, Denali Trane, St. Croix Eyecon trolling rod and the Okuma dead eye pro. Has anyone ran either of these rods and have opinions on them? The the trolling I do is for walleye. Thanks.
Wisconsin Fishing Discussion
Walleye trolling rod
I own several trolling rods - an Okuma Dead-eye Pro, among them. It works fine, but so do the Shimano, Daiwa, and Cabelas rods I use. None cost me more than $100. I troll almost exclusively with Ambassadeur 5000 or 6000 series reels - some almost 40 yrs old. Just keep them cleaned and serviced and they last for decades.
Agreed, spend the money on a quality line counter reel instead of the rod.
I have a set of telescopic Okuma Deadeye's that are about $40 a piece that catch fish just as well as the set of telescopic Walleye Angler rods that were about $100 each.
Both sets are paired with Okuma Coldwater reels.
Rods only matter if you can't stow them easily. Telescoping rods are the norm, confirm the depth of your storage compartment to make sure they are out of harms way. I use rod socks to prevent the crazy tangles that inevitably occur.
If you stumble onto the old 8 ft. 6" Berkley Lighting (ML) telescoping rods and the reel seats and guides are good buy them.
Drop your coin on quality reels Daiwa, Okuma Convectors, Shimano... and keep your drags loose and rod tip high.I have run Daiwa 27 H's for almost 30 yrs. I have had the drags rebuilt once because they were starting to get sticky. (Too much crawler poop.) Quality line with a smooth drag trumps any action or type of rod.
Drop your coin on quality reels Daiwa, Okuma Convectors, Shimano... and keep your drags loose and rod tip high.
Good Luck on your purchase,
Mac
I personally use the Okuma dead eye walleye trolling rod's for trolling leadcore and mono lines for both walleyeon inland lakes and salmon and trout on lake Michigan they have a good action and are very durable and strong the ones I use collapses down into the base to make them shorter and easier to store. Good luck fishing and hope this helps. The brown colored rod's are the okumas and the yellow are not
For walleye trolling, I don't think the rods matter much.
I run the Cabella's telescoping rods. I just find an action that I like and roll with them.
Reels, though, do make a difference. I had the Cabella's depthmaster reels and they were not so good. Drags were bad, clicker didn't work well.....etc.
So I upgraded to Diawa linecounters, the silver ones. Much better reels.
But for rods, just find an action that you like. I wouldn't worry much about cost on those rods. Mine were pretty inexpensive and work quite good.