Hooligan

I like the Owner CPS hooks for flukes, both weighted and unweighted.

There is zero size difference in the body, diameter, and size of the spool. The only difference is that the spool is deeper on the 3000 to allow for greater line capacity.

Keep in mind because braid has zero shock strength it isn't impossible to break on a hookset. I've done it quite a few times in the past when I completely jaw-jacked a fish forgetting it was braid. If you get slack in the line and set the hook, it can, and does, happen. Not highly likely, but isn't out of the realm, either- particularly if there's a miniscule weak spot

As has been said the Okuma rods are a great rod. In response to your original question the Irod Jr isn't a rod that I liked throwing even rof5 6" hudds on. The big bait rod is more suited to it. They load adequately, and the have enough power to set the hooks on big singles. Hey also handle big wood baits very well. I also feel the Okuma is a better all around rod than the Crucial Heavy. The new Crucials are extremely powerful rods, the a heavy wouldn't be well suited to throwing much under a three ounce bait. Don't get me wrong, it'll do it, but you're going to work at it. The Loomis 7-11 MH is probably the absolute best all around swimbait rod that will handle a variety of baits a d weights most effectively, it's also $240, though. If I were going to buy one stick for a large variety of uses, it would be the Loomis.

I have only one of the new LTB which is the 7-9 swimbait and I'm quite surprised at the comfort of the rod. I really like the reel seat and grip. I'm glad I went that route.

Pick one or the other for what? General purpose? Grass? Wood? Rock? Open water? Schooling fish? Cruising fish? Isolated fish? Can't choose one or the other, both are essential tools to an angler that is going to maximize his or her success in any given situation.

Flip sticks and pitching rods are two entirely different beasts. Pitching rods are most generally Xfast- not a fast tip, or a fast action tip- That's completely beside the point. The speed of the blank does not relate only to the tip. You can't have a moderate rod with a fast tip, nor can you have a fast rod with a moderate tip. It's a complete misnomer. What you're after is the taper, or speed, of the blank in its entirety. A Flip stick most often is going to be best suited as a Mod Fast because of how much reserve power you have in the blank on such a taper. You simply haven't got the power and lifting strength in the vast majority of Xfast rods. Case in point= Shimano Cumara 7-2MHXF. There's no WAY I would even begin to think of flipping with this rod. You'd be breaking the tip after every hook-set from the shock of it. You need the energy absorption of the mod-fast blank to account for it. #2- The rods taper has little to do with the sensitivity. There are many, many mod-mod fast rods out there that are just as sensitive as rods in the Xfast taper. Saying that Rod X is more sensitive because it's XF than Rod Y because Y is ModFast is like saying an orange tastes better than a grapefruit that you expect to taste the same because it's a citrus. In terms of how the Crucial compares to flip sticks in the same category, the XF is a fast, the F is more akin to St Croix's Mod fast. The Crucial XF and the Cumara XF are two entirely different tapers, and cannot be comapred on the same scale.

Northstar Hair jigs, and Northstar spinnerbaits. When the water starts to cool more, I go to jerkbaits and blades along with the hair jig.

The best cold water jig trailer is a Lucky Craft Pointer 100. :-) But really, I'll change up from a Rage Craw or Lobster to a Baby in cold water a lot. It depends on the jig I'm fishing, though, too. On a lot of the hair jigs I fish in late fall and later winter/early spring, I use pork. It's increasingly rare for me to do that, though. Plastics are so much more productive.

@ OP The reels in question are a sealed waterproof drag. In comparison to the pflueger reels that I've fished and handled, the shimano has a much better system. The only Flooger reel with a sealed drag is all the way up in the Patriarch XT. There are a couple of reels that say they're sealed waterproof, but they are not, because they rely solely on the spool tension cap. Other than that, they're a decent reel. The biggest thing that shimano has over any other spinning reel is line management. They twist less, cast further, and perform better with line lay than even the new Certate. They've also got the features patented incredibly well, which is why you see only Shimano doing the things they do on spinning reels. The bail, the spool lip, Propulsion, SR Concept, Aero Wrap... the list goes on. I mean, really, who was the first company to use direct drive arbors on spinning reels? If you said VanStaal, you're wrong, it's Shimano; and now everyone is mimicking that little bit...

I'd have to say the vast majority of my spinnerbait fishing is done on a Cumara CUCX69MH with a Calais 200 on it. Second in line is another Cumara CUCX69M with a Calais 100 on it. Both of those are sporting 15lb Tatsu. In open water I throw a lot of blades on a CUC70H with a Chronarch 200E6, around docks and short clearance I fish a Loomis 783GLX and a CR722GLX Both with Curado 100D.

From my experience in dealing with them, and knowing the sheer volume of folks that I do; those issues are very similar to what a lot of people have experienced with G2 Premier and STX. It's nowhere near as isolated as you guys are making it sound. Regardless of the problems I had with them, I'm completely willing to give them a shot, and that's the key. They build a strong reel, plain and simple, it's just that there are durability issues with them. I mean, look at it like this- I average something like 300 days a year on the water, typically. Compared to what most people do, that's an awful lot. In many cases I put my reels through as much as four or five years use for the average guy in a single year. That's where some of the problem lies.

I had to replace spool bearings and AR bearings in seven different reels. I had to replace three sets of main gears in Premiers. I had to replace levelwind gear in four different reels. I had to replace a spool on two reels because the shaft end deformed under load. I had to replace one spool because the pinion slipped and cause the spool to go off center, ending in the spool going out of round. I had to replace three handles, and several cast control knobs. I also have several friends that had reels mimic the issues I experienced; from spool bearings to level winds, handles to gears. I've seen or experienced a very wide range of issues relating directly to the Revo line. One cannot, either, attribute it to maintenance, use, or product equivalency. I fished them the same as all my other reels, took care of them as all my other reels, maintained them as frequently as all my others.

In my experience, it is, having fished the rod with fluoro, mono, and other braids, S8S is definitely the culprit. As well, not one other rod that I have REC tips on has had issue. I've never seen it, either, with any other line, but have had it happen with two tips with S8S, and have friends that have had issue with it as well. I find it extremely hard to believe that mono will grove it, give the REC hardness being on par with that of Alconite- in some cases the hardness is actually much higher because of the deflection factor... I won't go into it here. Point being, having had the experience only with S8S, and fishing REC guides on a number of rods with no issue for a number of years, S8S most certainly is the issue at hand, in this case the sole issue. The other problems I've had with S8S are that the finish coat balls up so badly it's like the line is badly abraided, actually creating small nodules on the line. When that happened, you're sure to notice fray shortly after.

Tried Kanzen yet? As it turns out, the S8S Power Pro is crap. I ended up really liking it at first but had nothing but issues with it once I broke it in. It's such a loose braid that it will flex and get grit caught in the voids. I grooved a REC tip top with it. I was astounded. I've been fishing the 60# through the summer and have been quite pleased. Samurai has better diamtere, but other than that I think they're actually in the same class. Kanzen has a little better abrasion resistance, but not by a whole lot.

From what I can tell, it isn't the shim sets, it's the actual pressure plate that regulates spool tension on the very inside of the tension cap. They're using a different material than they have in the past and it seems to compress much more easily and doesn't provide the resistance. I would think that you could replace it with a cork/rubber of the same thickness and you're going to get better spool tension results. I know for a fact the STX I have right now is still just as touchy as a gen2. It doesn't like to hold a point of spool tension that it cast consistently. It varies greatly in how much pressure I have to apply with my man-made anti-backlash: my thumb. I haven't put a cork in to verify that, but from looking at it, and reading the issues; I'm near 100% certain that will correct it.

DINGDINGDING! We have a winner! I'm not "down" on the Veritas, but their quality has gone downhill since the initial launch for sure. A close friend of mine has broken five of them in the past four months, all on a hookset, all about ten inches above the handle. I thought that it was related to how he was storing them, or how they were riding in the boat, but could find absolutely nothing to indicate that. I've also talked with a great number of people in recent months that have denoted much the same thing. The kicker? Their older Veritas rods, from last year for instance, are still in perfect working order with no issues. Word on the street is that part of AG's production on the Veritas has been shifted to GLV International, opposed to another, unnamed facility. If, in fact, that's the case, it's entirely legitimate that they're having some issues. There are few companies out there than can handle the volume of GLV, but the sacrifice is that some of the qc is going to be lowered. You can't catch every mistake when you're building 1500 rods at a time in a run...

Shimano reels wear in, particularly the E series, be it Chronarch or Curado. Their gears are cut so accurately that they are tight to the point of almost not seating properly. Their tolerances are very, very tight. It will take some use and wear for it to quiet down. I've not fished a perfectly quiet out-of-the-box E series reel, ever. The first thing that gets done, as with every single reel I own, is that they're stripped, cleaned, and lubed properly. I have many E series reels and every single one has been the same.

The new Lexa is a great little reel for the money. It will handle jigs down to 3/16 on the right rod with no problem at all, that is something that my tuned Shimano reels still fight. 3/16 is about as light as I can regularly fish on them with any accuracy and reliability. I don't care who you are, and what you think your experience level is, Daiwa has always, and most likely will always, build a better light line reel than Shimano. This coming from someone that owns more than 40 Shimano casting reels of current and previous manufacture. My PX68, PX-R, and Alphas are far better suited to 1/8 ounce total weight. They just handle it better, period. The Lexa is pushing the boundary for an inexpensice reel, at $139. Get the Lexa, spend an additional $120 on a better rod- Sellus is not the rod you want to perform this duty...

I go through jigs like mad fishing in rock, but that's usually because rocks eat them. In wood, I think I've only lost two this year, and that's because I was stupid about it. Down south, I'll go through a dozen jigs in a tournament sometimes. Just because it's easier to break it off and retie- takes less time than to try to save it with a plug-knocker.

Good Shakeyhead worm? Rage Thumper in Junebug or Blue Fleck in stained water. Super on a shakey. Zoom Gtail is a STELLAR worm, too.

Not very often will it replace a spinnerbait for me. This generally excels when bass are actively feeding on baitfish, regardless of where they are in the water column. Spinnerbaits are much more versatile for me than underspins. That said, it's a good technique in the Ottertail lakes and lakes in that general area. You're going to get a lot of pike doing it, but hey...win some, lose some. My #1 MN bait this year was a Northstar New Gill flip/swim. Granted I only fished three tournaments and fun-fished a couple times up there, but they were all over it this year. The other thing that mauled fish on my last trip up, which was a week and a half ago, was the Rage Recon, backed up by a Watermelon Blue Ring Fry. Everyone else was fishing sticks or cranking, and only one other person caught a limit- he happened to be fishing a GP Ringer....

As far as I've been told it's entirely conjecture at this point. There's been talk, but nothing substantial.

Thus far, the S is actually the most impressive in the new line. I've not handled/fished a premier much, but the others are all well done. They mae a good reel this time around. My hope is that the longevity/durability issues have been addressed.

Ghoti, I'll buy it- if I don't already have three. I love my Cumara's very often fish them over GLX and NRX- they just fit. That said, I'm not at all fond of the rod in question. I liked it initially, and fell out of love with it rather quickly. It's just too heavy a power and too fast for the application. As much as I dislike the Phenix line, the Recon 766 is a better rod. Unless you're fishing deep jigs and swimbaits constantly, where you need to tip speed on a hookset, the 766 is the better rod for the purpose. It's more manageable and has a better feel in hand.