I'm hooked on Tautog fishing. They are intelligent fish that fight hard and taste wonderful. After an entire season of catching countless black sea bass, endless scup, and a good amount of fluke, it is the fall Tautog season that is really the highlight of the year. I had all the wrong gear for it this year. Most of our gear on the boat was far too heavy, a mix of trolling rods and reels for tuna. Some of the gear was far too light, meant of freshwater bass. The sea bass and scup were easy fish to catch and I felt like I could catch them on anything. Trolling rod rated for 200lbs and a Penn 50VSW loaded with 100lb braid? No problem. How about a 7-14lb graphite rod with some wimpy line that I wasn't even sure of the test? Well that worked too. It was a bit like moping your kitchen floor with either a Zamboni or a toothbrush. But since the fish hit the deck anyway, I didn't bother getting the correct gear. My thinking started to change during Tautog season. Though I could still catch Tautog with the incorrect gear, I was not getting away with it as much. With the trolling rods, they didn't have enough length or flexibility to get a good hook set. Also they were so stiff that Tautog would give the line an experimental tug and know there was a telephone pole connected to the other side. Then I started switching to my light tackle, which presented a host of other problems. Tautog are intelligent and try to wedge themselves into the rocks when hooked, or they will try to wrap your line around those rocks. My light rods just didn't have enough backbone to get the Tautog out of the structure before they snagged my line. Worse yet, the tautog had actually broken a couple of my lightest graphite rods in the cold weather with a hard hook set. Lesson learned. Since Tautog were so fun to catch and so darn delicious, I decided to invest in a dedicated Tautog rod. I scoured the internet for what was considered the best Tautog rod. Many brands and models were thrown around, but one name kept coming up. Kevin Bogan's Fish Poison. Apparently he's been building Tautog rods for 30 years, and knows a thing or two about how to make a good Tautog rod. The model recommended for Tautog is the FC70MH, 7 feet long, fast action, MH. For about 159 dollars Kevin will put your name, your boat's name, and a fish sticker on the rod (Tautog of course for my rod) In the interest of full disclosure, I never got to actually go catch some tautog with my new Fish Posion rod yet. I ordered the rod too late and we had to pull the boat. However the rod is of excellent quality, and it has the attributes advertised about the rod, fast action tip, very strong backbone, wonderful balance. It also has great build quality. I've already loaded my favorite reel onto it and a few hundred feet of 30lb 832 braid. I can't wait until next year to start breaking it in on seabass and scup before putting it to the real test of Tautog. read more

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