TorqueConverter

Daiwa and Korean OEM guy here. Shimano noob. What exactly is this shallow spool in Daiwa terminology? A 1016 Daiwa type spool? What's the deal here? Looks like a Core 50 MG spool in a Curado. Whats the excitement? Is a 50 MG spool in a Curado I this exciting to the Shimano crowd?

I used Sensi Thin years ago which is a precursor to Sensation. IMHO, if you want a low stretch mono with good handling, go with a fluorocarbon line like Seaguar Invizx or Sunline Shooter

Nope. Not yet. I plan on purchasing the frog rod and paring it to a used Megabass Zonda 68. I like the materials and balance of Abu Veritas rods and love the balance, materials and sensitivity of the Veracity rods. Fully expect the Ike rods to be technique specific rods that are somewhere between Veritas and Veracity in materials, balance and fit and finish. I plan on purchasing the frog rod to fish frogs/toads primarily with the rod serving overtime tossing jigs, T-Riged plastics and wacky Senkos.

Glass + #30 braid is a match made in heaven. Hard to go wrong with a Powell Diesel Glass Crankbait. I throw 90% of my cranks and topwaters on a MH Powell Diesel Glass Crankbait and it serves me very, very well.

The only Lews thing about a Lews reel is the name on the outside. Lews reels are re-branded OEM reels and as such are subject to OEM changes. These changed include things such discontinuing a platform (remember those great Bionic/Extreme/Rick Clunn BPS reels that vanished) or Lews could jump ship from Doyo to say Banax as BPS seems to have done and Lews reels could become a different Korean OEM animal entirely. What LEws does very well IMO is stick with the right Korean OEM, Doyo and order reels from them with good bearings resulting is a smooth reel.

Sounds like this isn't your 1st rodeo so it's fair to assume you know how to cast a baitcasting reel. Based on the description of the problem you having, I'd hazard a guess that you may be missing some shims from underneath your spool tension knob AKA mechanical brake. I'd locate a manual, disassemble your shim stack in you knob and compare. I had baitcaster that behaved exactly as you described and it trued out that a shim or two were missing.

The Abu Ike power rods come in a frog/toad variant which is 7'4'' MH and rated to throw between 5/16 and 1 oz. I'm looking at getting one for frogs and skipping plastics as well as pitching but I'm unsure how good the rod is going to be with bottom contact baits. Worth a look IMO.

Couldn't agree more. The SV spool with its light weight and strong braking profile seems to be more about skipping small plastics and jigs rather than bombing small plugs for max distance in open water. I bought my Alphas SV just for pitching and skipping small jigs and unweighted salt impregnated plastics, but if I was looking for a small plug finesse baitcaster like OP I'd probably get the centrifugal braking Liberto Pixy SPR or a yumeya spooled Shimano product.

If I was in the market for a finesse cranker then I'd be buying a Daiwa Liberto Small Plug Revolution (SPR). Excellent condition used can be had for less than $250.

What difference does it make?! Well, all the difference former secretary of sate. While a number of reels on the same platform means that the same platform is in use, this does not mean that the specs are identical. Reels of the same frame, ie platform have very, very similar appearances but often differ in specs and quality of components. Considering this thread was originally about the appearance of the Titanium 8 and its striking similarity to a Lews reel, it was important to point out that both reels are based on the same platform as a little known reel from rarely mentioned reel manufacture, hence their same appearance.

That is EXACTLY what you have been doing this entire thread. It's too late to back peddle now and change the narrative to "but I actually meant identically the same" Nope.

Yes i can. A Doyo Urano doesn't cease being a Doyo Urano just because it's painted a different color or the spool is slightly different. I've been inside many a Doyo and I can identify one when I see it no matter what color it is painted or what badge is on the outside. This new BPS Titanium 8 thing is a Doyo Urano. End of story.

You are either delusional or in denial. I take it you like Lews reels and this revelation that they are in fact Doyo reels is somehow upsetting to you and this is why you have gone to great lengths to dismiss this fact . There is no need to be upset. As I stated earlier my favorite Korean OEM reels are Doyos and many others feel the same way. Doyos are great and re-badged Doyo with a different drag star and other slightly different pieces of exterior plastic is still a Doyo and still great. No, I would argue that it is a Doyo Lubina, because that's exactly what it is.

Well, actually it is. Lews BB1 and BPS Titanium 8s are Doyo Uranos and what I posted was a Doyo Urano. The point of my post is to help you identify the OEM Doyo reel from which both the lews and BPS reels are made from considering you expressed difficulty in identifying the BPS Titanium 8 in not one, but two posts in the thread.

One of my favorite squarebill cranks. Highly buoyant bait with great rolling, wide tail kicking action. I've caught significantly more fish with these than KVD squarebills or any other squarebill for that matter. The downsides are that the bait is light weight, the hooks are poor and the the plastic is more brittle than other plastic baits.

Look familiar now?

There are no such things as BPS and Lews reels. They are [INSERT NAME] reels from Doyo Engineering. Yes, I do own a few and like them a lot. Doyos are my favorite Korean OEM reels.

On the Daiwa Procayon. I've got a 6'6'' medium spinning and it's not that great. It's been a good versatile workhorse rod and I've caught a bunch of fish on it, but it's fairly tip heavy in balance, somewhat moderate in action and the aluminum knurled portion of the lock nut came unglued and clangs around on the ribbed blank as it slides up and down the shaft. Really need to re-glue that now that I mention it.. For $60 I'd look elsewhere. What exactly? Sale priced stuff from TW and some well thought of house brand stuff.

House brands like Bass Pro and Cabela offer some pretty darn good rods at a low price point. BPS Bionic blades and Carbonlites are great but Cabelas has a range of tencnique specific rods with the Tournament ZX that I'd take a good hard look at.

My 7'2'' M Zodias arrived today and I paried to an Alphas SV that I have had waiting for it and..... to my surprize it is pretty tip heavy. Very tip heavy actually. While the rod is amazingly light weight the balance on the 7'2'' medium, at least, is poor. I have $100 rods that are very well balanced and I am shocked at the tip heaviness of this rod when paired to even a 6.2 oz reel. It is as if weight reduction was placed at a higher priority than blance. I would like to add a bit of weight to back of the rod to balance it out so if anyone could point me in the right direction of some slide on butt thing or a way of removing the rear butt section to insert weight into the blank, then that would be great. Others consider the balance of these rods to be very good so perhaps this is just an issue with the 7'2'' M.

To all those having issues with casting distance on the Alphas SV, I believe the spool bearings are the culprit. My brand new Alphas SV with brakes set to minimum and no line on the spool wouldn't spin as long as my T3 Ballistic setup to cast cranks with #30 braid. I doused the bearings with Goof Off and this freed them up a little bit but they became fairly noisy quickly. I wouldn't write off the SV spool just yet. Throw some better bearings in there have another go at it.

BPS Flicker Worm. It's an OEM knockoff of the Big Bite Baits Squirrel Tail Worm which is also very good. The slender tail section paired to the large floating plastic nub makes it an excellent shaky head bait and produces more action than other more conventionally shaped finesse worms.

"spinnerbait rods" are also "swimbait rods" in my book which mean they are MH F rods with a longer, softer and slower tip than what you would consider normal for a MH F. The advantage of the slower and softer tip is I don't have to feed the fish the bait the way I have to do on stiffer tipped faster rods meaning I can react to the bite, set the hook and hook fish deeply and well.

A good round #30 8 carrier such as Sufix 832 is my go to cranking line.

Powerteam Lures Hammer shads and Havoc Money Makers are good drop shot baits as well.