Raider Nation Fisher

I own two old aluminas. And have three of their spinning reels. They have all worked good for me. I dont really fish them anymore, since ive started useing curados now. But they arent half bad reels.

The day that the coach called I had just gotten back from a weekend partying at another school. I had a absolute blast. With football, wrestleing, and track I was pretty much busy year round. I had never had a chance to just be a regular student and just go wild. Turning that scholarship down was the hardest thing I have ever done. I regreted it tremendously after two weeks of being a "regular" student. But hey I wouldnt have met my wife and had my adoreable three year old son if I had taken it. So I feel it worked out for the best.

Lars Fredrickson. Homie gets all those punk rock girls.

Played all four years. Started Junior and Senior years. Got Defensive Lineman of the year my junior year, as well as helping my team win the Alabama 5A state championship that year. We finished second in state my senior year. Then I turned down a full ride to a small school, and thusly ended my playing. I still miss playing, but hey it was awesome while it lasted.

Ive fallen head over heels for my 6 Curados and my lonely Calcutta reel. Shimano all the way, baby!!!

Im convinced. I believe I will pick one up sometime this week. From what yall have said they seem to be high quality at a decent price. Now to get shopping.

After browsing my favorite outdoors store today, I have a question. What are yalls opinions on the Shimano Cumara? Are they worth the 220 as far as sensitvity and durability, or would a different brand be better? I bought a Powell while I was there and intend to fish it this afternoon. However im still curious about the Cumara.

I just bought a powell max about twenty minutes ago. Then I find this thread. I feel like I did good in getting the powell.

1. Azuma crankbaits. 2. Azuma lipless crankbaits. 3. RI worms. Eapecially the Bloody Mary, Flirt.

For shallow lipped crankbaits I prefer a medium rod with fast to moderatly fast tip. I just find I miss less hooksets with it. On my medium depth cranks and rattle traps I prefer a medium heavy rod. The extra backbone seems to help me get a better hook set, for the slightly deeper fish. This is just what works for me though. Like Grey Wolf stated earlier, everyone fishes differently.

I got a 50e on sunday. Havent fished it yet, but I will tonite after work.

Just got four of the curados. Stupid bait monkey. As if bait wasnt enough now hes influencing my tackle purchases.

We were rummaging through the basement at my wifes grandparents lakehouse today. Admiring her grandads numerous rods and reels, when we came across one that seems to be really old. The reel is a pfleuger Silk Cast. That says trademark number 1953 on it. The rod is a Excelsior Steel Rod. And is honestly made of metal. I was wandering have any of yall ever seen or heard of these before?

I will definately look into those. Thank you for the advice.

Yesterday, was a heart breaker. First a little background. I responded to a post about cheap tackle yesterday and appearently jinxed my fishing in doing so. Now for the tale... I recently bought a Curado 200e7 that I am completely in love with. I decided to see how if it would live up to my expectations for cranking, as I had only fished jigs in the few days since I had bought the reel. So needless to say I was very stoked to get to try the cranks yesterday. Anyway I arrived at my pond and set to work putting the curado through its paces. It performed remarkably by the way. After about three hours of steady fishing I was getting ready to pack it in and head home. Thats when the fun began. I cast out to a flat about thirty yards to my right and as my crank sat on top of the water, the water boiled and it vanished. I slammed the hook and immediately the reel started screaming as line was pulled off it. I added drag while reeling, and gave the rod a sharp jerk to get the fish to swim towards my direction. Sucker jumped about three feet out of the water when I jerked, and I tell you she was every bit of 24ins. long. She was trying to dive by a sunken tree with some branches sticking up about twelve feet in front of me, and was fighting like a champ. She tried to dive about six times, and each time I pulled her back out of the branches. With another jerk of the rod I had her about a foot off the shore. She was still fighting but was obviously exhausted, or at least getting exhausted from our epic battle. Thats when it happened. In my eagerness to claim victory and what looked to be my new pb. I lifted the rod to swing ms. fish over to the shore. As soon as she was out of the water I thought maybe I should have reeles her in a few inches to the bank and lipped her out of the water. To late. She gave one more fierce shake, my treble hook straightened out and back into the water she went with a splash. She turned and looked at me as if to say, "I win" flipped her tail and was gone. It took every ounce of my being not to snap my rod after that. But hey she is still in the pond and I am certain that we will meet a second time. She may have one round one, but I intend to win round two.

So I responded to a poat yesterday about cheap tackle. Appearently I jinxed myself in doing so. Went fishing after work and hooked into a monster bass (at least for the pond I was fishing). Went to pull her up to lip her and she shook and straightened my hook out on my crankbait. Needless to say miss big fish swam off. Any advice on stronger treble hooks than the stock VMC hooks that were on my crank?

I like that description. I believe I will be borrowing that for future use. Tell ya what ill even give you credit for it when I use it.

That is hilarious. Up until a few days ago, the smokes were my go to reels. Wow things sure did change fast. I am definately getting another curado. Im thinking an e5 this go around. And I really want another calcutta, however that ones going to be put on hold for awhile.

Went fishing with the Curado again yesterday. I'm stuck on it now. It blew my Smoke out of the water with my cranks. Im going to sell off or trade the Smokes in today for another Curado or two. These things are awesome. Even throwing cranks in the wind it never backlashed the first time.

Had it happen once while bass fishing. A 3# bass guessing by size, straightened my worm hook about a foot from the shore. I swapped to larger diameter hook and havent had that happen again. Also had it happen with a catfish. My partner and I were fishing above a dam. The bassin had gotten slow ao we threw some chicken livers out on my deep water rods. We had never caught a catfish over twelve pounds out of this lake so we were useing relatively small circle hooks. Dang three foot monster cat took the bait and steaightened the hook out, as we were hoisting it into the boat. I was livid and partner was rolling on the floor laughing, cause I had told him there were only small cats in there and a big hook was a waste.

If you throw another twenty bucks on it, the Carbonlites are on sale for 69 bucks right now. Thats btw a twenty to fifty dollar discount. Those rods are great, especially at that price. However for the under fifty price range. The Berkley Amps and Lightining rods are pretty nice. As are the Diawa Procyon rods. I have one spinning and one bc. Both have held up well, ans thats fishing them over two hundred days a year for the last three years. Line wise, with you excluding braided line. I would say ten to twelve pound Seagaur flouro.

I havent tried it on cranks yet. Hopefully I will get to, after work today. Ive been practicing with jigs alot lately. Cranks are my go to lures. I fish them everywhere: grass, weeds, laydowns, rip rap, lily pads, any and everywhere. If it preforms like it did with the jigs, I might sell one of my beloved Smokes and buy another one primarily for my cranks.

I just gave Shimano reels, a final chance. Thus far I am beyond impressed. I sold off some stuff and bought another Curado e7, the previous one broke on the first day. I also bought a Calcutta. My gosh, these two reels are amazing. The Curado is smooth casting as all heck, and seems to have the power of my Abu round reels. It took me two minutes of playing around to get it set perfectly. I threw jigs for four hours yesterday and didnt have the first backlash. The Calcutta is a straight up hoss. That bad boy is smoother than the curado and has the power of a panzer tank. It reeled in one and two ounce swimbaits like they were nothing. The Calcutta I expected this kind of performance from. The Curado on the other hand completely blew my mind. I hate to say this but the Curado out performed my two Smoke reels. And up until yesterday they were my absolute favorite reels. If these two reels hold up like ive heard they will, then Shimano has just got a life long customer. The quality of the Calcutta is unmatched by anything ive used in its price range. Even the Curado seems to be good quality, which I have faulted it for in my previous post. Wow I had no intention of writing a full reel review, but im giddy as a school girl, about actually getting two Shimanos that are better than the previous ones I had.

Ive been using the H2O hollow frogs. They seem to be pretty good quality. At least at the current moment they are. Only time will tell how long they hold up. Currenrly they seem pretty compareable to my spros in feel and quality.

The intended application for the new reel is going to be hard swimbaits, 1 1/2 - 3oz. jigs. The Smoke reel I traded the broken reel for wont handle this task, least not in my opinion. The reel is going on my new Shimano Trevala which is rated at 40-60# and max lure weight of 3 3/4oz. The rod is a 6'3" medium light. I thought it would be nice to match the shimano rod with a shimano reel. This combo will be used in both fresh and saltwater. As I said before Ive had three shimano reels now, two of which broke within a week. The third of which my brother messed up after my having it for 15 years. So I figure Ill give them a final try and just blame the recent curado to bad luck.