Both inexperienced and advanced anglers will be able to catch catfish without a problem, assuming they have the right equipment to do so. There is a huge selection in the market place, including very high end products and very low end fishing rods. Your best bet is to stay around the middle of the price range whenever your budget allows for it. What else goes into selecting catfish rods?



What Are You Catching?

Depending on where you will fish for catfish, select your catfish rod based on the overall size and type of fish that you are looking for. If you are unsure of what the water can offer, find a reference on the web regarding that specific location. Why does this matter? Before purchasing your fishing rod, you must take into consideration the size of the fish it will haul in for you. Is the rod large and strong enough?

Consider Examples

One sure way to find the type of fishing rod that you need for catfish is to compare the options available. One example of a catfish rod is the Berkley Reflex 2nd Generation. This is an inexpensive rod at around $20 to $25.

It offers three casting and three spinning options for you to use. It will hold up to 40-pound test as well as eight ounces of bait of your choice. You may notice that this rod is quite different from the original version, and with good reason. To reduce the price on it, the manufacturer completely changed the look of the rod. They made it much stiffer and reduced the number of rod size options available. It does not offer scotchlite on the guide wraps either.

On a good note, they did improve on the cork handle for this particular rod. In order to use this rod, though, count on only fishing for large Blue catfish or Flatheads, anything else will not be done justice with this rod.

Another catfish rod that you may want to consider is The Boss, which is from Jim Moyer's line. It provides four unique casting options. It is part of his specialty series of catfish rods including the Berkley E Cat. The Boss offers a high-grade E Glass design and has a cork handle with trigger. It includes a reel seat that is heavy duty and dependable in the long run. There are two smaller rods here, which offer titanium glides.

The two larger rods are made with stainless steel glides. Each of these models offers their own rating, but the largest can take up to a 40-pound test. You can enjoy using the larger rods for both mid size and larger rivers.

They are great for use with Flatheads coming out of the timbers, too. If you invest in the smaller models, which are good choices for many, you will want to use them for channel catfish and small Blues, in particular. For this type of specialty quality, you are going to spend more.

These catfish rods will run you about $65 to $70 on the market currently. Yet, the quality that you get from them is worth it for the angler that will use it often. You will appreciate the extra investment if you are a true angler.