What Rod For Swordfish
One shape covers more swordfish fishing than any other on this site. It is a rod about five and a half feet long that is as stiff as rods get and bends through its middle, short, and braced against a belt at your waist. The label reads 5'6" extra-heavy, moderate action stand-up, rated 32-200 oz and 80-200 lb. That weight range spans most of what these fish are caught on, and that line rating clears the roughly 60 lb their fight and cover ask for. It is still not the right rod for every method below.
The Rod That Fits
Each reason below comes from the same rule the rest of the site uses. Four things are asked of a rod. Does the bait's weight fall inside its rating? Does the action suit the hook? Does the line rating survive the fight and the cover — the weeds, wood and rock fish hold around? Does the rod belong in this water at all? Only the first can make a rod flatly wrong. The rest make it a rod you can fish and should not.
5'6" extra-heavy, moderate action stand-up
- Length
- 5'6"
- Power
- extra-heavy
- Action
- moderate
- Casts
- 32-200 oz
- Line
- 80-200 lb
Its 32-200 oz rating covers a 64-160 oz rigged squid deep-drop bait. The moderate bend gives a circle hook — a point curved back to catch the jaw's corner as line tightens — the steady pull it sets against on a moderate-action rod.
Cannot cast, and nothing under two pounds will bend it at all.
If You Already Own a Rod
Buying is not the first answer. Tell the Finder the length and the word printed above the handle — how much it takes to bend the rod's lower half. It sorts what you can throw at swordfish into what works, what is marginal, and what the rod will not cast. For anything in that last group it says what shape would throw it instead. Most rods sold as general-purpose already cover more of this fish than their owners expect.
Where This Decision Goes Next
Swordfish
Everything else about gear for swordfish, in overview.
What lure for swordfish
What to tie on for swordfish, by technique, with the reason for each.
Narrow these rods to your swordfish water
Five questions, four of them skippable. Say where you fish and what you already own, and this list shortens to the shapes that suit your water — or stops being about buying anything at all, and starts being about what the rod in your closet already throws.