July 19, 2019

Kevin VanDam: More Rods, More Efficient

casting rod

I’m often asked the question about the number of rods I keep on my casting deck to fish. If I’ve only got four or five rods on my casting deck, then you know I’m probably tuned in to where the bass are and what lures I’ll need to use to catch them. Having said this, most of the time, I’ll have 10 rods rigged with lures on my casting deck, since I may not know exactly what lure the bass are most likely to bite where I’ll be fishing. This most often happens on practice days.

However, I may have 10 rods on my casting deck rigged with lures and six more rods rigged with lures laying in the bottom of the boat and leaning up against the passenger’s seat, in case I can’t get the bass to bite the 10 lures I’ve predicted the bass should bite. I always want to have enough rods and lures ready to be able to have the correct lure to fish any cover I may encounter in a day of fishing. I may have grass baits, topwater lures, several different crankbaits that dive to different depths, a frog ready if I encounter water vegetation, one or two flipping baits and any other kinds of lures I think I may need on rods ready to fish.

I want to be very efficient when I’m bass fishing. I don’t like to waste time finding a rod and a reel, picking out a lure and rigging up that rod to fish with that lure. For me, that’s inefficiency. I’m most efficient when I decide there’s a lure I need to be fishing, and I can reach down to my casting deck, pick up the rod and start casting. Or, the worst case scenario is that I have to come off my casting deck and walk back to one of the six rods I’ve got leaning up against the passenger’s seat in the back of the boat and then take two more steps and begin casting.

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