Different Types of Fishing Rods and Their Uses: A Primer for Beginners

There’s a fishing rod for every occasion. You name it, there’s a rod built for it or something similar. When you’re a beginner, it can be overwhelming.

You don’t know what type of rod to buy for fly fishing or the best lightweight fishing rod. And even if you do know what type you need, you might not know how to tell them apart.

Which is why you need a guide that can explain each of the main types of fishing rod. So, we created this primer for beginners on the different types of fishing rods.

Casting Fishing Rods

Casting fishing rods allow you to place your bait where you want to without a struggle.

They have a reel seat that places the reel above the rod. This makes all the guides face up, towards the sky.

When you have a fish on the line, the guides face up as the rod bends. While all this is going on, the force from the fish pushes the line down onto the rod blank and eyelets.

A heavy fish can’t pull the eyelets off your casting fishing rod.

There are two different types of casting fishing rods. There are bait-casting rods and spin rods.

With bait-casting rods, the reel sits perpendicular to the rod. The spool moves during casting and when you’re reeling your line in.

Spin-casting fishing rods have forefinger trigger clips. They have smaller eyelets with a big eyelet close to the reel. They make spin-casting reels for spin-casting rods.

Spin-casting rods and reels work well for newbie fishermen. They’re super easy to cast.

Fly Fishing Rods

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Fly fishing gets its’ name because of the type of bait used. Flies are used to fly fishing.

Flies are light. So, the majority of rods can’t cast them. They can’t gather the force it takes. It also takes a specific kind of line which is thicker. The thicker line creates the casting weight.

And it takes a specific type of fishing rod, the fly fishing rod. They’re made to cast flies long distances. These fishing rods have the flexibility to work with the thick line.

They don’t have a butt piece after the reel to allow easy angling when you cast. They also have special eyelets, snake eyes. The snake eyes guide the fly line to stop the line from tangling.

Fly fishing rods are super lightweight and they’re on the small side of the spectrum. They can only handle smaller fish since they’re so small and light.

Ice Fishing Rods

Ice fishing rods are shorter than most fishing rods. This is because there’s little space available to you when you’re ice fishing. They also have fewer eyelets.

Instead of a reel, the older ice fishing rods use two hooks attached to the actual rod.

You do the reeling yourself by winding the line around your hand. It’s not as hard as it sounds, the line is shorter since the rod is shorter.

Sea Fishing Rods

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Sea fishing rods are for, well, the sea. It’s a given. But you can use them in freshwater as well.

Some of these sea fishing rods are on the shorter side. These fishing rods are perfect for fishing on a boat.

The longer sea fishing rods are for when you’re fishing from land. The long ones are heavy-duty and they have big eyelets. The butt’s long so it can help you reel in those big fish.

One type of sea fishing rod is the surf fishing rod. These are super long fishing rods. They’re so long that you know one when you see one, even if you’re a beginner.

Their length allows heavy sinkers to be cast quite a distance. The long butts let you do a two-handed casting technique so it’s easier to maneuver.

Spinning Fishing Rods

Spinning fishing rods are sometimes confused with casting fishing rods. This is because of the many similarities between the two. But they’re not the same rod.

They’re lightweight and let you throw long casts with the lightest of lures. You’ll have no issues in this arena.

The first couple of line guides on a spinning rod are always big. When you go to cast, you open the wire bail. Hold the line with your pointer finger. You release the line slowly when you move the rod forward.

Spinning rods place the spinning reel under the actual rod. So, the rod guides face down. When a fish is on the line, the force from the line is pushing away from the rod blank.

Telescopic Fishing Rods

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Telescopic fishing rods are pretty nifty. They are portable and you can take them anywhere. Even if you have limited space.

And they’re not novelty fishing rods, they’re heavy-duty and high-quality.

Telescopic rods are compact. They can extend when you’re ready to fish and then compacted back down when you need to stash them away.

When they’re compacted down, they are only a foot or two in length. But they can extend the poles out to six feet to twenty feet in length.

Some of the telescopic fishing rods look like your average spinning rod. And they have the ultimate flexible tip. They have the usual eyelets to guide your line.

Other telescopic rods are eyeless. The fishing line goes through the center of the rod.

Conclusion

As you can see, there are fishing rods for everything. Most fishermen have several types of fishing rods for different needs. As you grow as a fisherman, you’ll start your collection of fishing rods. This is our basic guide to the different types of fishing rods. We hope it helps you find what’s right for you. Everyone is a beginner at one point.

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