Luke's go-to for 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 series crankbaits — and his pick for square bills generally. The 7-foot length gives you the cast distance to fish a square bill efficiently down a bank, and the 4-power action loads on a light plug without losing the parabolic flex that keeps trebles pinned. Also handles medium-diver crankbaits without modification.

The dedicated jerkbait rod — 6'8", with a fast-action tip designed to make a jerkbait jump and dance the way it's supposed to. The shorter length keeps the rod from loading against your forearm on hour-long twitch sequences, and the fast tip transfers your wrist action to the bait without absorbing it. The jerkbait rod everyone in Luke's category reaches for.

One of the more versatile rods in the Expert lineup. Luke fishes it for big plopper-style topwater baits, for open-hook swimbaits in the half-ounce to three-quarter range, and for heavier shaky head presentations from 3/8 up to half-ounce. The Hudson Special is the rod that handles "anything bigger than finesse but smaller than punching" — a huge fraction of everyday bass-fishing scenarios.

The Expert So Cal is Luke's swimbait rod for 5- to 7-inch profiles — the bigger end of soft-swimbait fishing where you need rod length to load up a heavy bait on the cast. It's also his Carolina rig rod for weights from half-ounce up to one ounce, and his big-jig rod for the same weight class. Light-grass punching is a secondary role — sparse grass, not matted vegetation. Wide-range specialty rod.

Luke calls the Expert Amistad one of his all-time favorite flipping rods. Half-ounce and under is the sweet spot — jigs, Texas rigs, heavier shaky heads. The 7-power action gives you the backbone to drive a hookset through cover and lift fish quickly, and the 7'3" length is the accuracy-and-reach combination for serious flipping work. This is the second rod most anglers add after the Mansfield in an Expert lineup.

When the cover gets ugly and the baits get heavy, the Amistad Extra Heavy is the rod. Three-quarter ounce jigs, one-ounce jigs, punching mats and bushes, flipping into nasty wood — this is the rod that horses fish out of cover before they can wrap you. The 8-power action sacrifices casting finesse for raw lifting power, which is the right tradeoff when you're fishing presentations where finesse doesn't matter and getting the fish to the boat fast does.

For punching heavy grass specifically — three-quarter to ounce-and-a-half weights through matted vegetation — the Amistad XH is also the right rod, even though it's not named for punching. The action class fits the application.

The Bayou is a 7-power 6'11" rod built specifically for one job — throwing hollow-body frogs through heavy cover when you can't have a long rod in your hand. Matted vegetation, thick laydowns, anywhere a longer rod gets in the way of accurate placement. The tip stays soft enough to give the frog its subtle walking action, but the backbone is heavy enough to horse fish out of cover after they commit. If you frog at all, this is the rod.

Luke calls this 7-foot spinning rod one of the most versatile rods in the entire Expert lineup. Drop shot, dragged tube, jig-head minnow, wacky worm — it handles all of them. If you fish multiple light-line techniques in a day, this is the one rod that can stay rigged across a wide range of presentations without changing the setup. The 4-power action loads soft enough for finesse hookups but holds up to a quality fish when one commits.