Cavfirst

DITTO!! Solar Bats are awesome designed by a eye doctor cant go wrong, But beleive it or not Strike Kings are not bad if were to be on a real budget or have a habit of breaking or losing them, but I have not found anything that equals the Solars!!!!!

I use the eye-crosser with floro and the palomar with everything else. My tests show that even though floro is plenty strong and the palomar works well with floro for the most part for some reason its not very shock resistant when used on floro. Meaning when your pitchin or flipping and really set that hook if the line is crossed at the hook tie eye the floro will cut into it self and snap at the knot no matter what knot ive used. I just find it easier to tell if the line is crossed by using this cool named knot and its just about as easy to tie as the palomar and showed about the same strengtht at knot wars last year. Tight Lines

:)When i first started deep crankin I also used 10llb mono and found it to work pretty well but just not quite strong enough with those great big 3/4 oz lures. I found and still use 12 lb floro for all my deep cranking for two reason one it gets the bait down were it needs to be alittle faster than even braid, which by the way also floats pretty well one of the reasons we use it for frogs. Thats another story the floro allows u a little more sensitivity for the bottom structure while using a glass or composite rod that is not that sensitive so we make up for some of that with floro. Get ya some and tight lines.

Iam with Reel Mechanic on this one great looking combo if it works for ya tight lines.

You will have a better hook up % with the longer rods or at least I did I just loved my 6 footers for a long time because I felt like I had more control over my baits but with alittle practice I found that I landed more fish with that extra leverage the longer rods 6'9 and longer gives me I still will not use anything over 7 foot. Try you a 6'6 MH for a good all around starting point of course I would recommend a Kistler Carbon steel IMO good luck and tight lines.

Save your money on the Revos just buy a Slivermax that way you will have enough money to buy a really good rod to go with your reel

good palamor's try tying a small overhand knot in the tag end and leave it alittle longer should do the trick. If you want to try a new one the berkley braid knot or the fish n fool work also.

Kistler Carbon Steel 99.99 at tackle warehouse no shipping...Great Company very tough rod.

x2 blackmax and silvermax but the diawa strikeforce and exceller are also good reels imo.

8-)The problem with modifying the existing reel is finding the parts to do it with it took me about 6 months to find the right reel to swap out the main gear and pinon to a slower 5.1 which is actually out of a pfluger reel I bought off ebay it fit perfectly in the black max frame and all other existing parts were the same. That's the deal with low profile bait casters they all are built basically the same I ve torn just about every brand imaginable down cheap and expensive just because I am one of those guys who just has to see how it works the difference in my opinion is the quality of the parts and that's were the expense comes in so sure BigTim anyone can do this modification and so far on this project it is working out great.

Have you tried the old Tom Mann Jr signature All Star classic Carolina Rig Rod you could pick them up at Sports Academy for like 50 Bucks "Broom Stick" but still fairly sensitve for the price. They were also very durable I whooped snakes, wasps and all kinda of ugly creatures with mine back in the day flippn were I ought not be Flippn

I run these and the Black Max reels exculsively and have been for a couple years now fishing atleast 3 times a week and I have had only one reel the anti-reverse went bad and I had to replace the drag washers on another one but I think that 22 lb alligator gar had something to do with that on 12lb test p-line go figure but I got my crank bait back anyways. You do have to keep your maintenance up on them clean, oil and grease a couple times a year or they start to make some noisy but that's not a big deal I have had to turn up magnetics on them when throwing small cranks in the wind but I keep my tension pretty loose. Great little reels overall I have actually modified one of the Black Max to a 5.1 for deep cranking so far the reel is holding up great but its still in the testing phase that will be another post. Abu makes great products I dont think you can go wrong with them. 8-)

I own 4 of the Mag series and 5 of the older graphite plus rods. The Mag series is a great rod the 6'9 is the first truly versatile all purpose rod that I have found very sensitive and light , but with that said I feel that it preforms best with spinner baits, swim-jigs rattle-traps etc. If you are looking to kistler for a good worm rod check out their new Football head Jig rod or the Senko specials. If you can get your hands on one of the graphite plus Texas Rig rods or even the Spinner-bait Special 6'9 awesome soft plastics rod. Of course these are just my 2 cents but hope it might help you out

Shake head work or weightless plastics seem to work well with this rod IMO. tight lines

I agree with Dave here awesome rods and backed by a great company try the 6'9 all purpose special it is the only true all-purpose bass rod I have found since the days of the old All Stars. :