Size Matters!

Ice fishing with a noodle rod allows an angler to follow the fish more efficiently

Long Rodding with Ice Fishing Noodle Rods

When you look at the ice fishing industry, it is interesting to see how different styles of fishing and techniques are popular in certain regions, but unheard of in others.

One style of fishing I find interesting and love to utilize when it is called for is ‘long rodding’. This ice fishing technique is extremely popular in the southern parts here in Wisconsin. Once you head north, you will be lucky to find anyone who knows what it is, much less practicing the technique.

Long rodding is basically exactly that, using a long fishing rod. Usually anglers will use a rod between 48″ and 60″, depending on water depth and how tall the angler is. This technique allows an angler to fish water fast without the use of their reel.

How long your rod is and how far you can lift your rod tip in the air dictates how deep of water you will fish. Now, I am 6’5″ tall. While long rodding with a 48″ rod, I am able to fish water better than 12′.

The tactic is simple and sound. Find the depth you want to fish or where the fish are located, and drill a bunch of holes. We all know that panfish love to move around during their transitions for the day, but few realize that even when moving into deeper water, panfish will usually maintain the same depth as when in shallows. I prefer to drill 20-30 holes in a grid like pattern through the ice with about 10′ spacing between holes.

Once your holes are drilled and you have determined what depth you want to fish, if it will allow for a long rod tactic, you are set! Get your bait to depth, fish them until they move on, then simply lift your rod into the air, and move from hole to hole. Keep track of where your rod tip is in transition to the ice and you can maintain the same fished depth. No reeling in and re-deploying line which helps eliminate line twist, and no moving your flasher from hole to hole. This allows you to move much more quickly, especially for those crappies that are covering water fast, chasing schools of minnows. Work your entire grid to keep on the fish.

Skandia Noodle Rods chart

There are many companies that offer long rods. Two of my favorites are the ever popular Whip’r Rod and the new Skandia Noodle Rod, both produced by K&E Stopper Lures. They offer exactly what ‘long rodders’ need in an advanced technology of ice rod. A sensitive rod tip with the backbone needed to put a hurtin’ on some fish lips.

K&E Tackle Stopper Lures Whip’r rods sizes chart

The technique is ‘Old School’, practiced by a small percentage of ice fishermen. But, I am here to tell you, there is no school like the old school when it comes to certain styles of fishing. K&E Stopper knows what works in the ice fishing industry and offers the right equipment for any angler to utilize these techniques.

By Raymond Tiffany