stick or waggler rod

Can anybody describe the differences between a rod designed for stick float work, and a rod designed for wagglers.
Is there really such a distinction or is it just a ploy by rod manufacturers?

A Stick Float rod is designed to be well balanced and pick up line well on the strike without breaking low breaking strain hooklinks.

Because the angler is always holding the rod and constantly mendind the line being light weight and balanced is more important than on any other type of Coarse Fishing rod.

Hitting quick Dace and Roach bites at distance without pulling the hook out or breaking the line requires a good quality rod.

Often stick rods will have a spliced carbon tip which gives them a softer tip action.

Stick float rods have become available in longer lengths with continuing improvements in technology. People have been fishing matches on my local river with 17ft and 20ft rods for meany years now.

Waggler rods are tubular right through and due to the changing nature of modern stillwaters, waggler rods have also changed in nature.

They have become, on average, more powerful to handle the more powerful fish now available in most commercial fisheries.

There are different strengths of waggler rod on the market. Some are more suitable for chucking a 3AA insert waggler accuratley 30 yards and some will lob a baggin' waggler 60 yards.

There is a huge overlap between the two types of rod. In fact hardly any rods are marketed as Stick Float Rods any more.

I think it's more important to match the power of the rod with the tackle and the fish you intend to catch.

Thanks for that Matt.
So a light waggler rod would be more suitable for stick work than match carp rod?

Spliced tip rods are still available but like Matt says they are getting rarer. There really isn't any need to buy them these days, they were ideal match rods because they are fast on the strike whilst being soft and forgiving but providing you buy a decent quality waggler suitable for river fishing (Usually termed light wagglers to distinguish them from those used for carp) I think you will find it quite adequate for stick fishing as well.

Colsmiff, it depends on what type of fish you are fishing for.

A Carp Match style rod would be ideal for Chub, bigger Bream and smaller Barbel but would pull hooks out of Roach.

Most Roach fishing requires fishing light lines. I often start using 1.5lb breaking strain line and a fine wire 22 hook and scale up or down from there.

Hardly anybody fishes that way with rod and line anymore so Stick Float rods aren't in demand as they were.

As Graham says, a light Waggler rod will do the job. On some days I think you'd miss a lot more bites and/or pull out of more fish.

The reason I was asking is that I'm planning a roach campaign over the coming months. I had a good session in the summer with a match carp rod trotting maggots, but found that I was missing a lot of bites (about 50%). I put it down to line bites on my dropper shot, but could well have been hook pulls.
Having said that I haven't been suffering hookpulls with other small fish.

The other options I can currently deploy are either a John Wilson 11' Avon rod or an abu suveran 16' which I did purposely buy for river work. However I have become very lazy and tend to routinely fish with a 13' Assassin Match carp rod, given the mixed bags I often catch from my clubs pools.

I suspect that the rod was a little slow in the tip due to it having a throughish action to cope with the bigger carp for which it was designed for.

Compensating by striking faster with that rod could mean breaking on the strike if you were to hit a good roach or even chub on a light bottom as the rod will have too much power.

If you were pulling out of fish this would feel different from missing a bite as you would feel the fish momentarily before "bumping" it off.

You need a rod with a fairly fast tip but not too stiff to protect the line on the strike and which then allows the rest of the rod to come into play progressively if you hook a quality fish on light line.

I am not sure how the Drennan DRX fits into the waggler/stick category but it fits the above bill for me.

The modern equivalent of a stick float rod would be something like a 13' Preston Sentient which would be perfect for the job. I use a Normark Avenger 2000 for stick, light waggler and Avon float work and it's so versatile it can do all of these well, but if I was using 22 hooks as routine I would dig out an old Daiwa spliced tip stick float rod that was even more forgiving. The DRX is a more powerful rod OK for slightly heavier fishing.

Nice rods, shame the missus may have something to say about the price! Are there any rods around the ?50 mark which would fit the bill?

I couldn't afford to keep using Normark rods I got through three in two years, they are or should I say were so brittle!

I use my Drennan Super Tench if there are big fish possible and its also very good with small Roach and Dace.

For 'Roach Bashing'I like to use a Maver 14 ft Crystalite.

Both are used with a 'pin - I've forgotten how to use a fixed spool on a river.

I hadn't even got as far as reels! Never tried a centrepin, I have only just really got to grips with fishing a stick , and that being on the relatively slow flowing Weaver. I tend to use a Nexave 3000, although I am tempted to get one of the new Exage FA in either the 2500 or 4000.

Colin,

Finding a good stick float rod around ?50 isn't easy but...

If you know what you are looking for a good second hand one in top nick might fit the bill, just a case of asking around. Might find a good match angler willing to part with one (probably not using it much nowadays as on the pole all the time), or people like Fisherman's Friend have clearance items - in Match Fishing. 2 months ago they had Daiwa Matchwinner Stick float rods at ?69 down from well over ?100.

that will be worth a look. Although I'm considering a light waggler rod, since my mainstay is a little on the powerful side for winter stillwater work, which is whatI will be doing mostly.

ah I miss my Silstar traverse x spliced tip rod,not an expensive model but it served me well.............










until I trod on it :-(