Namekagon,
I’ll skip all the ‘resolution’ stuff and try to answer your question about rod length.
You can go two ways for tight casting “nightmare” fishing areas.
A shorter rod requires less ‘space’ to swing it, that’s simple physics, even common sense. You still need to account for the amount of line out the tip, though. Forgetting that detail can lead to some interesting encounters with trees and brush.
A shorter rod is easier to carry/move around with. Again, common sense.
When you ‘roll cast’ with a shorter rod, you can keep the line lower than you can with a longer rod.
(A really short rod, say in the 4 1/2 foot range, can let you cast really low under stuff. You can even cast such a rod ‘reel end up’ keeping the line just above the water.)
A LONGER rod give you more ‘reach’ without casting. You can stick it through brush farther. You can ‘dap’ the line onto the water just by reaching out and lowering it to the stream.
On small streams where getting into the water is difficult or inadvisable, you can reach over it with a longer rod and cast ‘sideways’ or ‘parallel’ to the water and get a cast to up or down stream.
A longer rod will, generally, roll cast a bit ‘farther’, but that is more a matter of angler skill than rod length.
A longer rod will let you control ‘more line’ and mend a bit more, than a shorter rod will.
So, for me it really depends on how I want to fish a particular area. Do I really want to ‘cast’ much that day? Or would I prefer to do the sneaky stuff and try to get some fish in unusual ways?
In any event, I use rods from 4 1/2 to 9 feet on some really tangled small streams, and catch fish well with all of them.
Still get stuck in the trees and bushes, though, REGARDLESS of the length of rod I use…THAT has more to do with skill and lack of attention, of course…
Good Luck!
Buddy
