War Eagle 44

No he's not going to agree because you're wrong! I'm really not trying to come across like I'm "attacking" you here because I'm not, I'm simply suggesting that you do a little testing for yourself. Braid, no matter the brand, isn't close to a quality fluorocarbon in this department.

I'm not sure which hooks you may be leaning toward using but I've really had great luck with a variety of Owner Twistlock hooks. I've tried the Beast, regular Twistlock w/ CPS, and the Zo wire flipping hooks. All have worked great and you can decide which hook matches your particular bait choice on a given day. Personally my bite to land ratio really improved when I started using these hooks, I was having trouble with my plastic sliding down the shank and "balling up" causing me to not be able to get the barb in the fish. The Twistlock hooks almost totally eliminate this problem for me. I know you're (Siebert) a fan of Owner hooks as well so I just thought I'd throw this out there and see if you might think it would be worth trying. I'm using Owner hyper wire rings as well.

Fluorocarbon is absolutely more abrasion resistant than braid.

Might want to at least consider throwing white in as a color choice as well. Plenty of guys using this technique with "shad" style baits too.

As mentioned above, I'm using a Curado 301E on a Cumara umbrella rig rod. The combo handles them exceptionally well.

From Japan.

I considered that rod but I just keep coming back to the Expride 6'5" BFS rod. They make a one piece and a two piece, I'm only interested in the one piece. All the places I've looked are backordered for the one piece. I'll just keep looking.

Just got a package from Japan Tackle today, it took 5 days. I've ordered from him twice and both times it took less than a week. I picked up a Yumeya BFS spool for my Curado 51E and two different types of Shimano grease. Now I just need to order a BFS rod, hopefully soon.

Yes

These are my favorite finesse jigs. They are made by PJ's jigs and if I remember correctly their proper name is Lil' Brush Jig. They are quite small with a small, but very sturdy, Mustad Ultra Point hook. I've fished them on 30# braid and never bent a hook. I've caught tons of spots on these little guys and our local tackle shop has a hard time keeping these in stock, especially this color. I tied the skirts with braid myself as they come with a rubber band style collar. They really are very good finesse jigs.

Bantam1 explained this on another forum, Shimano uses slightly softer brass for the gears of the Scorpion 1000 than they do with their US counterparts therefore resulting in the smoother retrieve feel. He also stated that the Japanese as a whole tend to take better care of their equipment than we do so the small difference in the gears doesn't really effect the reels service life. Our gears are harder therefore not quite as smooth but don't require as much maintenance.

I'd suggest a Dirty Jigs arkie head jig in 3/8 or 1/2 oz. I think the actual product name Dirty Jigs uses for this style head is "Pitching Jig" but I could be wrong. Dirty Jigs is my favorite jig brand by far and I have quite a few of their jigs in different styles. The arkie head is such a versatile head shape that it works in a wide variety of situations. As far as colors go I'm with the rest of the guys here, preferring greens first then browns and lastly the tried and true black & blue. Good Luck.

I'm using a Cumara A umbrella rig rod - 7'9" H fast action with a Curado 301E. I've recently spooled it with 65# S8S but I've yet to fish it so the jury is still out on how I like using braid with this particular technique. I'd been using 25# P-Line CXX and liked it because of the small amount of stretch copoly has when compared with braid. In my experience fish hit this rig so hard that braid might be "over kill". I'm just such a fan of braid for almost everything else I figured I'd give it a try for this as well.

I'm a huge Stella fan myself, although I only own one at present (3000FD), these new ones are very very nice.

The Baby Brush Hog (green pumpkin) easily wins in my boat. Next would be the 6" lizard, also green pumpkin. Then the Space Monkey and lastly the Rage Craw. I know tons of guys rave about the Rage Craw but it just isn't effective for me except used as a jig trailer. The Baby Brush Hog is one of my all time favorite soft plastics and has caught me more fish than the other 3 combined. I've caught my far share on the 6" Lizard as well though. I always, 100% of the time, dye the tails on the brush hog and the lizard with Spike It chartreuse dip. I'm convinced it makes a really big difference.

I'm a 100% Shimano guy myself so this was right in my wheel house!

If I was forced to only use a single brand it would be Owner hands down. Having said that I've also really enjoyed a lot of success with the Mustad KVD triple grips but as another poster already pointed out Mustad made the decision to cheapen this line of hooks by no longer using their "Micro Point". I'm done with these hooks until such time as they see fit to correct this mistake and go back to their original design. I've started looking for a SS EWG treble to replace the KVD hook's with and started to use the Gamakatsu SS EWG. It's a very good quality hook out of the package but for some reason it doesn't seem to hold or keep fish hooked nearly as well as the Mustad hook. Just by simply looking at them side by side you can easily tell the Gammy has a more open point angle, I'm not at all saying this is the reason behing my lost fish I'm simply stating that it may play a part. I was also very happy to see Owner's introduction of their latest treble at this years ICAST show, a SS ST-36! These will more than likely fill the gap left by the Mustad in my tackle box therefore I'll be down to a single hook maker for all my trebles.

I just picked up my first "finesse/shallow" spool this week, though this spool was designed with braid in mind so I'm not sure how "finesse" it really is. It's for the 05 Metanium XT and was intended as a saltwater jigging spool so it didn't originally come with the VBS hub. The gentleman I bought it from installed one on this particular spool though so I was pretty happy about that. I'm going to use it in one of my favorite reels the Chronarch B. I'm pretty excited to give it a try I just have to wait until I figure out which rod I want to go with. I don't have any finesse baitcast rods at the moment. On the other hand I have been toying with the idea of spooling it with 20# PP and just using it on my "regular" pitching rod.

Though I've never used 80# braid before I think my first choice would be PP Super 8 Slick just because of the handling advantage it gives you. In my opinion it's much more limp and manageable than either regular PP or 832, especially in the higher # test ratings.

I've never fished an Endurance but I do have 5 Max rods. I'm the opposite of the above poster, I never bought an Endurance due to the purple/pink coloring on them. Back to your question, the Max 735 is one of my all time favorite rods and I've fished it a ton. It's actually a Mag Heavy powered stick and 1/4 oz just isn't going to fish well on this rod. I'd say a nice starting weight for a t-rig or jig is 3/8 oz. Then add in the weight of your plastic or trailer and the rod fishes pretty well. 1/2 oz is even better.

I personally use a 201E for all my squarebill fishing and have absolutely no problems or complaints. I also love my 51E but I primarily use it for plastics and jigs. No doubt in my mind though that the 51E could handle squarebill duties without complaint as well. I just "feel" more comfortable going with the 200 size for this application. On a side note, that does and doesn't really pertain to the original question, I really really like the E series reels, I have 4 in the 200 size, 1 in the 50, and 1 in the 300. In my opinion Shimano really hit a home run with them. I've personally found the 200 size to be a fantastic "all purpose" workhorse reel that is super reliable and durable. Either way you choose to go you're going to be getting a very nice reel.

What your describing sounds more like a backlash than line dig in to me, though of course I can't be sure not actually being there. I fish 30# braid (S8S currently) on my Curado 51E without line digging issues. It's very very important that you spool the braid on with a good amount of tension, this has helped in my personal fishing tremendously.

X2

I too use 20# on my spinning reels. Just the pound test I'm most comfortable with. I have a friend who uses 15# S8S on his reel and I've never had a problem casting the same distance as him using 20#. At present I have regular PP (green) on one reel, 20# 832 Ghost on one (a nice line but I prefer PP), and 20# P-Line Spectrex on another. The P-Line is the nicest handling longest casting line of the three but I can't get it locally so I rarely have it. Also a few months back I picked up a 300 yard spool of PP white in 20# that should last me a good long while. I've been fishing white PP Micro Line 4# on my ultra light and loved it so I thought I'd give the white a try in the higher pound test.