What’s the one bass rod you’d own if you could only have one? This rod has to do everything because you can only have ONE.
8 1/2 ft. 6 wt. Used to have a St. Croix that somehow got between me and the ground, and even inside the tube, broke in half. Replaced with a 9 ft. My old one was a perfect rod. JGW
my one rod would be my fenwick 7 1/1 ft. fiberglass,can use 5,6or 7 wt. line.at times i fish a small stream with brush a longe rod is a pain…but can also use it on bigger streams.
make a rod, catch a fish
Robert
Great question! I’m still looking for mine. Last spring I bought a 9’ 8wt rod, Ross C4 reel and RIO Clouser line. Thought I had the perfect set up. That is until I developed a bad case of caster’s elbow. That whole outfit is just too darn heavy for me and for the size of bass in most of the places I fish. I wound up fishing most of the season with a a 8’ 5wt.
I’m going to try and use a 9’ 6wt this year for bass and see how that works. Ideally though, like JGW I think for me a 8 1/2’ 6wt would be the ticket.
I think I’ll stick with my 2 weight. When the bass aren’t cooperating it’s fun as heck to use it for anything else 
If I could only own one bass rod it would be 9 foot, 9 wt., fast action. A 9 wt. is a little on the heavy side for most of the places I fish, but since I can only have one, it will do the job for the “someday trips” I have planned for Texas and Florida.
Jeff
Danged Robert,
Your scoring brownie points with my
wife already.G Just one rod. Jeez!
Believe it or not, my choice would be the
$9.00 6 1/2 foot Graphlex Supreme that my
boy picked up in K-mart in 4/5 wt. With a
6 wt Cortland 444 (in peach of course) it
puts my dremel version of the olde Hula
Popper exactly where I want it back in the
cypress swamps here in SC. It accounts for
fully half or better of all of my bass and
is near perfect for my cypress choked swamp
fishery. Go figure.G Warm regards, Jim
Dang Robert, I just got me a second rod, now you want me to consider cutting back? Okay, I guess I actually have 3, but both of the ‘old’ ones are 5wts, an 8 1/2 and a 9 footer. New one is the three forks 3 wt that gets kicked around on here from time to time as a good rod.
Okay, so to answer your question, since I only got a couple of 5s and a 3, I would have to go with the 5, but it’d have to be the 9 footer. I didn’t use it alot last year, because I was using an old worn out line most of the year, but this year is gonna be different. Gotta use it and the 3 wt and it’s gonna be a real tough coice most days.
Don
Robert, I’m going to buck generally accepted wisdom here, and it is based solely on my style of bassin’. I would choose a moderate (toward the fast end) 7’6" or 8’ three weight. One whose construction minimizes physical weight to the bare minimum. With a nice beefy cork grip to fit my large hand. It would exhibit good workmanship but would not be so “fine” that I would worry about laying it in the bottom of the canoe. It would need to be 4 pieces so I could drop it into a carry on bag.
Does a single rod fit this bill? A lot of them come very close. But as always, they exhibit some concessions to universality. So I’d probably have to build it myself.
You are not going to send the rod police to get my other ones, are you?
Jim
Robert,
The keyword to me is “everything”. For that reason, my 9’ 8wt. I want a 6 wt eventually, but to handle ALL types of bass fishing, at this point my thout would be the 8 wt.
Mike
Good question Robert,
Our guess is that you could really control pulling anything thru anything (fish/vegetation) by tippet size.
Therefore the remaining “variable” would be the size of the bug tossed. Let me ask how big a bug do you wish to control on your toss, then we can guess as to the rod wt. needed to toss the line needed 
A Kevin Doran Rat (http://www.flyfishnorcal.org/php-nuke/m … age&pid=86) would generally take a 9wt - 10wt to toss comfortably. We have done fine tossing some stuff (small hair bugs and surfcandies) for LM’s on our “ought” when BG’s became boring.
If only one rod (arrrghhh) we would chose one to toss our biggest bugs.
…lee s.
Robert ,I would have to stick with my 5wt.9footer.
Good question! Without a doubt, I would pick my 9 ft 7 wt Sage RPL. It is not as fast as some of the newer models so I can cast it all day without getting worn out. Soft enough to enjoy catching bream and crappie and has enough backbone to easily handle 9-10 lb bass without killing them by playing them too long. Do I sound convinced???
Jim Smith
An 8’6" Granger Special. Pure heaven!
[url=http://www.native-waters.com:b8265]http://www.native-waters.com[/url:b8265]
My Sage RPLX 990-3 is about perfect if I could only have one. Plenty of backbone for hauling fish out of cover. Handles 11wt shooting heads and 30ft of LC-13 for fishing deep or casting huge flies. I have a number of other rods in 5-9wt from Sage, Orvis, Redington, Fly Logic, an Winston but the RPLX is my favorite.
If I had to replace it, that would be a Sage Xi2 of same size.
Very interesting answers guys. Thanks for the responses. Boy, it’s tough for me to decide too but I’m going to join Okie and go with a 7 1/2 ft. 2 wt. for the sheer pleasure of it. I know I’m giving up some backbone to horse one out of cover and I won’t be able to cast the really big poppers into the wind as well as the bigger rods would but I’ll trade all that for the fun of a small bass or gill on a light rod and after all is said and done aren’t “small” bass what we catch 90% or more of the time anyway and with a Jim Hatch/Buddy Sanders/Chevy Van style foam popper, you can throw a pretty big popper with a 2 wt. and since most of my bass fishin’ is from a tube or wading, I don’t have to throw it that far anyway.
Robert,
You may not want to limit yourself to a 2wt line for your purpose. We toss an 8wt level on our “ought” and it handles a smaller (#6-#4) hair popper fine, for short shots especially. There is somewhere along a level line that does load a rod…if the line ain’t too small.
…lee s.
Lee,
Thanks for the tip. I’m using a 3 wt line on the 2 wt but your idea is interesting.
Don’t overlook shortening your line 5’. this put you into the belly faster and will improve the ability to turn heavy or wind resistant flys. If you have the taper disgram for your line, you can get some idea of what you can do from it.
I’ll take my cutom built Forecast 7.5ft 4pc 4wt. I use a Mastery Headstart wf5f line on it and can throw upto size 4 poppers with ease. I built it with a Pac Bay graphite spinning seat, with stained cork insert, and chrome Fuji Alconite single foot fly guides. This rod casts smoothly and fights your better than average bass with plenty of power. Best part about it, it cost about $60 to build.
Lou