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I've asked this question before and never really got an answer. I tried a left handed baitcaster when I was going to get my first, and the move from the trigger during casting to palming was more awkward than just switching hands, and I couldn't cast while palming the reel.

It really depends on how thick the stuff your fishing will be. If you are just flipping docks, MH will be fine. If you are punching, I would go heavy. I live in the same area, and I like to punch some pretty thick stuff, I go heavy on my rods for that. Granted, I don't have any Croix's, so I don't know how they MH/H compare.

What do you guys not like about the ACS seat?

I've taken two rods back to BPS for breaking. Both without a receipt and they exchanged them no problem. One was only a day old, the other I think was over a year. But, your BPS may vary.As for good rods vs many combos, if you are just building your arsenal I would go with many combos. To me, having different combos for all my presentations is way more important than having the best gear. Now that my arsenal is pretty much built out, I'll start buying/replacing with the better gear. I think you made the right choice!

In the charts I've seen, reds/oranges actually travel decently in clear water (10-15 ft) and actually travel better in dirty water than the other colors. Bass eyes also pick up red and green colors the strongest. Whats funny is bass eyes aren't very good and seeing blues / violets, which is a favorite color of many bass fisherman (myself included).

I don't know the exact experiment that was done to determine their visual acuity, but if you don't have any evidence to counter the results its hard to discount them. Are we going to believe scientific research or a lure companies marketing? Don't confuse overall intelligence with specialized physical attributes. The ability to see really well has other benefits besides intelligent decision making, considering a bass is a predator whose primary hunting tool is its eyes and must track and capture fast moving targets. On a fast moving target like that, the bass is using its eyes to track and capture, not inspect and decide.

I'll use pump and reel with spinning reels or when pulling fish out of thick cover, but if I have the bass moving, I'm winching it in with my baitcaster. If the reel can't handle that, it isn't a very good reel. My graphite sided reels don't have any issue with that. I'm definitely not going to play a bass for 60 seconds in a tournament if I don't have to.

I disagree with that. The handle side plate definitely adds structural integrity, at least on the reels I've taken apart. Take the handle side plate off and feel how much side to side play is in the handle without it. That is force that the roller bearing, and thus the side plate take care of.

Yeah, bass can see at 52 frames per second, compared to our 19. I'm sure bass can see the baitball, but doesn't still doesn't mean its not a gimick. Especially the top water ones, I've never seen a school of fish thrash and rest at the surface as a group lol

I agree with your overall point, but thought your reasoning was off. Well, went and did some research, and you are correct. Been a while since I've taken any physics course, forgot the relationship between reflection and refraction. Thanks for making look into that further! I agree that fluoro doesn't vanish underwater, but the similar refraction doesn't hurt. I like fluoro more for the sensitivity than anything else. People say it is much more abrasion resistant than mono, but I haven't really tested that myself.

You just gave the refraction values and they are different, so clearly the difference is measurable. Also, refraction is not shininess, I believe you are thinking of reFLECtion. Big difference.

I wonder how many people didn't read your entire post and voted based on spinning reels? You didn't mention this was for casting only until the very end. I know we have a few spinning only people on here.

By now you all should know that if a pro mentions a brand or product by name, there's an extremely high chance that the producer of said product has their logo on the pro's jersey, and the pro is being paid to say those things. When listening to a pro's advice, you have to filter out the marketing and get the general message out of it. When the pro says "In these conditions, I throw the red eye shad on my high speed Lew's reel", you have to filter it out and understand that you should be burning a lipless crank. There's usually good advice in what the pros say, you just have to peel back the layers of marketing and product placement to find it.

Chronarch Ci4+ was just spares too.

That range seems right in the Medium rating for most brands

I think that is definitely part of it. It seems right caster left crankers are passionate about justifying their position, probably because reel manufacturers continually leave left hand crankers with less options.But let's be honest, the reel companies are basing their offerings on sales numbers. If sales of lefty reels don't overcome tooling costs, they aren't going to offer them. I think preference has a lot to do with what you grew up with. I grew up with spincasters, didn't try spinning reels until shortly before baitcasters, and never fell in love with spinning, so cast right right retrieve feels more natural to me.

Alright, I guess I'll give it a try, if I don't like it I can always move it to a different role. I finally got to test cast it today, and WOW, you guys weren't kidding, this thing casts like a dream. It casts so well I might grab a Tatula for the jig rod and make a finesse combo with this one. Looking forward to actually being able to fish it. Thanks for the help.

Hey guys, I got a 7:1 Chronarch Ci4+ that I had planned to use for throwing jigs, but now I'm wondering if this reel would be better suited in a different role. I generally throw 3/8 or 1/2 oz bitsy flip jigs. I usually pitch them around docks and vegetation, some times I will drag them on deeper weed lines. Is the Chronarch Ci4+ tough enough for general jig fishing and to occasionally pull fish out of thick stuff, or should I put it in a lighter duty role? Thanks!

Definitely not. I did really well in tournaments this year, and I don't think I had a combo that cost more than $150. The gear doesn't catch the fish, just might make it a little easier or more enjoyable.

4.5 grams is definitely less than 1/4 oz, it is tiny. Its slightly less than 3/16.

The Reel Butter grease could be your issue. I am unimpressed with the stuff. I was trying different greases as I cleaned my reels, and on the three I used reel butter on the gears, they were loud and rough afterwards. I thought maybe I didn't put enough, so I added more to one through the lube port. That quieted them momentarily, but after spinning the handle a bit more eventually the noise came back. I didn't have noise problems on the reels I used shimano or BPS grease on.When I took the reel back apart, the grease had piled up at the pinion gear. It was like all of the grease had been pushed out of the teeth. I cleaned those three reels out again, used shimano grease on the gears, they were much quieter and smoother after. Maybe give a different grease a try. I won't be using reel butter on the main gear anymore.

A punch setup is much more streamlined than a jig with an exposed hook, weed guard, and hook eye. You can punch a jig, but I've found it picks up much more junk in the process.

That's a clever way to save battery. I was suspicious they were a gimic when I saw how hard they were advertising them last year. I'll wait and see on these.

I was just reading about how electronic noise makers in lures have difficulty creating a noise that is loud enough to hear over the ambient water noise. I tried shaking a Livingston in a store, I couldn't hear anything. Do they need to be turned on before they make noise?

Boca bearings and hawgtech are the two bearing companies most buy from. You can replace any bearing you want as long as you know the outer diameter, inner diameter, and depth, and can find a matching sized bearing. Generally, unless the bearing has gone bad, guys will only replace the spool bearings for performance gains. Even then, on some reels not all spool bearings are important to replace (on Pro qualifiers, the handle plate bearing doesn't contact the spool on a cast, only under load). There is LOTS of info on this site about bearing upgrades, hit the search function hard and you should be able to find anything you want.