What to Look for in a Rod and Reel Combo for Largemouth Bass
If you’re in the market for a rod and reel combo for bass, you need some serious criteria by which to judge your choices and make the best pick for you.
Let’s work through them so that you know what to look for.
Cost-to-performance ratio
Most combos are designed for novice anglers looking to hit the water on a long, lazy afternoon. They’re typically inexpensive, and the rods and reels they supply are at the very low end in terms of performance.
But combos don’t always cater to this crowd.
On the other end, companies like Lews, Shakespeare, Cadence, KastKing, and Abu Garcia - to name just a few - put together combos that range from inexpensive workhorses to outstanding performers. And surprisingly, these “workhorses” don’t need to cost much more than a junk combo designed to catch buyers rather than fish.
The question is how much performance does each dollar deliver.
The combos that made our shortlist deliver a lot for what you pay. That doesn’t mean they’re all expensive, but rather that you really get a lot of bang for your buck, whatever their price point.
And that’s something every god combo should deliver, no matter how much it costs.
Baitcasting vs. spinning
There’s simply no question that baitcasting tackle dominates bass fishing, and there are good reasons for this.
The first, and perhaps most important, is that baitcasters are designed for heavier line, defined here as more than 10-pound mono diameter test. In head-to-head comparisons, you'll notice a huge difference in casting with the same 20-pound mono on a baitcasting versus spinning reel.
Baitcasting reels also have more mechanically simple and effective drag systems. When you’re fighting monster bass, that matters a lot.
Finally, baitcasting rods typically wear much smaller guides, improving the transmission of vibration to the blank and allowing you to feel what’s going on much better.
But that doesn’t mean that baitcasters are the only game in town!
Some folks just prefer the ease of use spinning reels offer, and there’s no question that they outperform baitcasters in windy conditions.
They’re at their best, however, when they’re casting very light lures or baits, a feat that baitcasters struggle with without backlashing.
If you’re an experienced angler, you’re probably nodding your head right now.
And while you'll find reviews for spinning combos that folks try to sell you as direct competitors for baitcasting combos, quite frankly, those combos are designed around saltwater angling.
Can you use them in fresh water? Absolutely. But they’re heavy, cumbersome, and just plain painful to cast hundreds of times. After all, that’s not what they’re designed for.
Instead, spinning tackle is best reserved for finesse techniques, where very light terminal tackle is the norm. In these situations, a medium-light spinning rod with a good reel is simply the best possible choice.
Our shortlist reflects that.
Rather than reviewing spinning tackle that competes directly with our baitcasting choices, we’ve reserved the spinning options for finesse techniques. As a result, you’ll notice that the rods vary substantially between these two categories, and the reel sizes we’re looking at on spinning rods are in the 20- to 30-size.
Drag
The vast majority of the time, you’ll be running braided main line for bass.
The reasons are simple.
Braid provides much greater sensitivity and hook-setting power than nylon monofilament or fluorocarbon. Its small diameter means you can pack a lot of line on your reel, allowing you to cut and re-tie without worrying about seeing the spool, too. And of course, you can step way up in strength without worrying about capacity as a result.
The drag on your reel needs to keep up with that increased test strength. And if you’re running 20-pound braid, you want a sensible maximum drag of about 7 pounds. For 40-pound braid, that number needs to rise to about 14 pounds, and you’ll notice that the reels we’ve reviewed cap out at about there.
We’ve looked at combos that are braid-ready, and the drag systems are up to the task.
Smooth, strong gears
While weight is always an issue, the smoothest, strongest gears are precision-machined solid brass.
Solid brass teeth bite well against one another, deliver lots of no-slip torque with each crank of the handle. And they can be made very, very smooth with good fit and finish.
And while very easy to machine in an absolute sense when compared to much more wear-resistant or hard materials, CNC machining still costs a lot of money compared to alternatives.
The best bass reels will have solid brass gears. At the low end, you'll often find plastic.
Speed and gear ratio
Speed matters.
When you’re fighting a big bass, and she runs straight back at you, if she can win more line than you can recover, it’ll create slack that allows her a chance to spit your hook.
Tight lines are essential, and that’s the main reason to care about speed.
Yes, there are techniques and lures that make use of higher (or lower) speed reels to create different presentations, but generally speaking, speed is all about a tight line.
A reel’s gear ratio can’t tell you how fast it is. I know that sounds strange, but bear with me.
All a gear ratio tells you is the number of turns of the spool per rotations of the crank. Thus, a 6.0:1 gear ratio reveals that every time you turn the crank one full rotation, the spool will have made six full rotations.
But two different reels can share a gear ratio and vary in speed tremendously due to differences in spindle circumference. Put simply, the bigger the spool, the more line it picks up per revolution.
To know how fast a reel is, then, means that you need to know not just the gear ratio, but the actual retrieve in inches per turn of the crank.
Blank materials
While blanks can be constructed from a variety of materials, our short list is dominated by two: graphite and fiberglass/graphite composites.
Graphite is ultra-lightweight, extremely strong, and amazingly sensitive. It’s a premier material, and of course there are different grades of graphite, ranging from the relatively inexpensive to the stratospherically costly.
Graphite rods are pretty much ideal for sensitivity, and their hook-setting stiffness is legendary as well. Worm rods, and finesse applications generally, can be fished at their best with graphite blanks.
Graphite/fiberglass composites combine a core of stiff, strong, sensitive graphite with an outer wrapping of ultra-tough fiberglass. This results in a rod that’s a great deal more durable than pure graphite, but ultimately less sensitive.
At their best with crankbaits and other treble-hooked lures, they can nonetheless work pretty well for finesse techniques.
But I’d stay away from this blank material for worm rods.
Power and action
Power describes how much force is required to bend a rod; action tells you where on the blank it’ll start to bend under load.
You’ll notice that our baitcasting combos are medium-heavy powered rods with fast actions.
This combination is pretty much ideal for fishing with a single-hooked presentation, and whether you’re throwing a big Texas-rigged worm or a meaty swimbait, you’ll want that power and action for hook setting and hard fighting.
Combined with a fast action, a medium-heavy rod will let you feel the details of the bottom and detect a strike, set your hook hard, and drag a monster out of thick cover.
By contrast, you’ll see that our spinning combos are medium-light rods with fast actions.
This combination is built for finesse bass techniques, allowing you to throw unweighted soft plastics or tiny jig-headed Neg rigs and the like. They’ll load and cast well with light terminal tackle, and provide unparalleled sensitivity - exactly what you’re looking for when using a finesse presentation.
Guides
Excellent guides do two things well: they transmit vibration from your line to the blank, allowing you better feel, and they cushion your line under load, reducing friction that can cause a catastrophic failure.
Baitcasting combos enjoy a distinct advantage on the first.
Because line unspools directly and in-line from a baitcasting reel, the guides on the rod it's riding on can be small. And all other things being equal, smaller guides transfer vibration better.
By contrast, spinning reels spit line far from the center of the blank, making wide loops that are anything but in-line. To feed line down the guides, the first guide - called a “stripper guide” - needs to be big. Each guide after that shrinks a bit in size as you move toward the tip.
Obviously, that decreases sensitivity.
But because you’re using medium-light, fast-action rods, that necessary loss in sensitivity is meaningless; those small-diameter rods are going to allow you to map the bottom as you drag a jig head across it.
Handles
Whether you’re a fan of synthetic split grips or long, continuous cork, you want a handle that is comfortable to cast all day, big enough to provide plenty of space for your hands, and fight-ready.
All of the rods on our list meet these challenges easily.
Final Thoughts
Rod and reel combos don’t need to be “cheap,” and whether they’re inexpensive or not, they should deliver great performance.
Lew's Mach Pro Baitcast Combo is simply the best baitcasting combo out there, leaving any other brand in the dust.
The reel is slick and smooth, backed by precision-machined solid brass gears. It packs a strong, reliable drag, plenty of capacity, and ultra-lightweight components into a great-casting, hard-fighting package. And paired with an equally remarkable rod that delivers impressive sensitivity, hard hooksets, and head-turning power, you’ve got a winning package that any bass angler will love.
Lew’s Mach Pro 30 Spinning Combo takes out top spot for a finesse rod and reel combo for bass, demonstrating Lew’s dominance in the bass combo market.
The reel on this combo is every bit as impressive as you’d hope for, offering precision solid brass gears that drive a big spool. The result is the fastest reel on our shortlist. And with an excellent drag system to boot, this is simply a great reel for finesse applications. It’s paired with an ultra-sensitive rod that can feel every tickle and bump, while still wrangling big bass to where you need them.
We hope that this article has helped you choose your next rod and reel combo for bass, and if it has, we’d love to hear from you!
Please leave a comment below.
