Traditionally, many anglers have been willing to invest in rod technology when it comes to bass, walleyes, musky, really any kind of predator species. For whatever reason, panfish rods haven’t gotten their fair share of interest. Longer rods, when it comes to panfishing in general, offer some great benefits to the angler. Not only do you get better leverage, you get further casting, you get backbone, and more.

The rod Joel Nelson is using in the video above is extra fast action and really only flexes the last quarter of the rod, which is exactly what you’re looking for in a panfish rod. Fast and extra fast actions paired with some backbone allow you to get a really nice hookset.

A lot of people don’t think you need all of this for panfish, but with light line, big wind, clear water, bobbers and long casts, it pays to have a longer rod to help you get the job done.

Walleye anglers have long known the benefits of fishing longer rods with bobbers. Whenever you’ve got a bunch of line below that bobber, the amount of leverage you have against the fish is extremely minuscule. When you get a bite, take your long rod and point it at the fish, reel down and set the hook. The length of the rod will allow you to achieve a much better hookset and put a lot more of those bobber bites in the boat.

Most panfish anglers still favor monofilament line. As we all know, there’s a little bit of a shock absorber effect to mono, which makes longer panfish rods even more important to pull the elasticity out of line and get straight to the fish on the hookset.

Faster actions means better leverage, better hooksets, you can cast further, and everything’s going to function the way it should when you hit the water in search of panfish.