upnorthbassin

If I had to buy just one rod I'd probably get a legend xtreme from the st croix bargain room. If I had to buy one reel I would get one of the Lews Team series reels.

I got some of those live target craws during that sale too. They only had 4 hooks with those on display so the selection was slim, but I bought a selection of what they had. I've never used them before but they have a great look to them....even down to the packaging. I'll be giving them a try as soon as this ice melts.

The one near me has a somewhat limited selection and I hardly ever see any clearance deals on rods or reels. The only st croix rods I've seen there is a small rack with 8 or less triumphs and a couple of mojos. I have never seen one marked down. I do come across deals like recently their xcalibur products were all marked down 40% off or so...and you might find one color of one particular crankbait for 30-50% off here and there. Sometimes they have an additional 50% off sign up and you can get a good deal but your selection is exremely limited because it only applies to item prices ending in .97 or something like that....and that never seems to be the stuff that most people would be interested in. Not to mention that everything is on the wrong hooks and you have to read the bar code numbers on the tags to tell what the price is to begin with. They never touch the fishing department...I've seen stuff that's obviously damaged, set aside on the rack and a year later it's still in the exact same place on the same rack. I've stopped going there for the most part because it's just not worth the trouble putting up with their nonsense and awful customer service to get a deal. Oops...now I sound like angry typing guy on a rant. hahaha. Oh well.

You can also use 2 o-rings, criss cross them and put the hook in the middle. You can get bags of o-rings super cheap (a fraction of the price of that saddle kit) at an auto parts place...most of the right sizes are in auto A/C systems. Just slip them on using your pliers. They even come in multiple colors. I take a paper clip and load it with o-rings and toss it in the tackle box. All of that being said I still usually use a weightless texas rig 90% of the time.

But those rods are not really a Loomis rod. From my understanding, they used his input for the design and licensed his name for those rods...that's it. They aren't made from Loomis blanks and they don't seem to share much in common with them from the models I've seen. Now he is designing rods for North Fork Composites although I don't know how they compare to the older GL rods.

Their glass cb rod is great for the money. Sure it has some lesser expensive components on it and you can tell right away...but that's what to be expected for the price you pay. This is purely a "meat and potatoes" rod. It has it where it counts but won't impress anyone or win any beauty contests. I like that. If the other rods in this lineup are this good I might just need some more of them.....or all of them.

I fished Bay Lake back in the first week of Sept of last year. The guide was good and we had fun. Didn't catch anything to write home about but it was a good time. I think our boat (just 2 of us on their nitro) had maybe 8 or 9 fish that day. If you're on vacation you might as well be fishing!

Sluggos are still pretty popular for striper fishing. Zara spook fell off the radar? I like those too...just got some super spook jrs the other day. Maybe they were half price because they aren't as popular as they once were. Who knows.

Yeah, I could go with that myself. My only problem is I keep wanting to try new line and picking some up here and there. I did get a 1lb spool of 6# hybrid (and some of the 12# too) last fall so I have a feeling it's going to end up on more than a couple of reels this spring. Even the 6# seems tough as nails.

I have a champion 763 and it's a great rod. It's not the same as what you're looking at but I think it's a good compromise power...it can handle the mid/small plastics ok and can still toss a 5" senko if need be.

If you want the Exo reel, Walmart has it for $181 and there's a $30 rebate on it too. I think the look cool but I've only played with them in stores.

I'm always looking for something new to try or looking for a good deal on something. That usually means a wide variety of stuff. If I do find something that I really like....a few months later I find something else that I like just as much. There are brands that I like but that doesn't mean that I will only use that brand. Maybe that will happen if I find perfection.

I went out and bought a symetre 2500 fj a few weeks ago because I knew they were being discontinued. I'll probably get the stradic 2500 fj when I find a deal on one. I'm always willing to try some new equipment but I'm also always skeptical of "new and improved".

Yeah, me either. I don't want to mix up what I'm saying here. I am not talking about spooling any type of braid the way he showed.

I was thinking for smaller capacity reels with 40-50# power pro also. It's more of a pain to back it then just spool it anyways if it's only going to take a couple of bucks worth of braid. If it's a high capacity spool I'll definitely stick with the mono backing. I also like having no knots in the spooled line (just a mental thing...no real reason why). Heck, I like as few knots as possible in anything period. That's probably why I like the idea of not even tying the line onto the spool to begin with.

I've had a few people tell me they do it the way in this video but I've always tied on an arbor knot. Any downsides? I've also had people tell me when they use braid they run the braid through just like in the video, tape the spool with a wrap of electrical tape, and then just spool it on with no backing. I've always used a mono backing for braid myself although I'm using less braid overall these days. I was also thinking if you tied the braid on through 2 holes in the spool rather than around the spool, it might prevent it from slipping too. Any thoughts?

I've always been sort of a bargain shopper but I don't limit myself to one certain price range. If I can get a $300 rod for $150, I'll probably buy it. If I can get a $60 rod for $20 I'll probably buy that too. I like nice things but I'm no gear snob....I'll use it all as long as I like it.

The Powell Diesel crank rod is great for the money. For jig rods I think certain MH rods depending on the brand/model are a bit underpowered to throw the heavier jigs. I would like a 7' MH Mod for cranking and a 7' MH or H Fast or XF for jigs.

You can buy the reel from bp on clearance for $50 now and the average price of a set of those bearings is going to be about the same. Obviously it's your reel and you can do what you want with it...but I don't know that I would put $50 into a $50 reel myself (although it would improve it of course). You could probably get a little nicer used reel or one on clearance for around the same price or a little bit more.

You can get a Tourney Pro online for around $150 if you look around. My wife gave me one for Christmas and I'm impressed with it so far (although I haven't had the chance to use it that much yet). Judging by the weight, smoothness, overall build quality, fit + finish, and design....it's an absolute winner. I have a feeling that I'll be saying it's my favorite reel in the near future.

Just to let people know...the $70 Veritas micro/winch at Walmart deal went away a few weeks ago. They are all $100 now.

I think the supreme xt is a great reel for the money. You could even get the patriarch for under $200. The Stradic is a good choice too of course as is the regular Stradic fj.

If I had to spend $300 on a setup I would get a Lews Tourney Pro and a St Croix Avid rod. MSRP on these together is over $300 but I recently bought a new Lew's Tourney Pro online for $130 w/ free shipping so deals are out there. the St Croix MH rods are somewhat heavy so depending on what you want to use it for you might want to consider the medium versus medium heavy.

Yikes! No rods should have guides messed up that bad on them. The thing that gets me is that if you're a company that is replacing a broken or incorrectly made product for someone....you already know that they had one bad experience and there's a higher chance they are already somewhat upset with you or have lost some faith in your products. I would be on top of my game dealing with that customer. Maybe give the product one extra lookover....takes a few seconds but saves you the cost of re-shipping more items and maybe even losing a customer for life. I will say that I don't ever remember reading bad things about their customer service though. Everyone seems to be pretty happy with them.

Welp, scratch that....I found a Cabelas XML rod for $38. Not exactly what I was looking for but it seems pretty darn good for $38. I don't normally buy store brand rods for some reason....I don't really know why but I just don't. This seemed pretty decent for $38 and it will easily handle the heaviest jigs that I have. They sell them for $149.99. There's no way I would pay that but it seems better than most options $75 or less.