MontclairDave

All great answers! I do agree losing topwaters is a rare occurrence for me. I still have the first Storm Chug Bug I bought 35 years ago. Hundreds of fish later, many many hook replacements, that thing is still going strong. The PB Rat is on my short list. But here’s the deal I made myself: keep it budget-neutral by selling some gear I no longer use and when I hit $125 in Venmo, will pull the trigger.

If you got a gift certificate for $125 but had to spend it on just one lure, what would you get? For me, it’d be a PB Rat because I’ve caught 3 of my top 5 bass on the Spro Rat, and I’ve heard the action on the PB Rat is a lot better at slow speeds. But god the pucker factor when throwing a $125 lure, I can’t even imagine. I’m sure there are swimbait addicts who think $125 is a bargain…

Picked up a very slightly used Kaden 713 and 610-4 CB from this site, came yesterday. My first Dobyns rods after years of hearing folks sing their praises. Will try em out this afternoon in between rain drops. Ooh I see these are back in stock on TW. Looks like a great way to get into swimbaits without breaking the bank.

I use Shimano Saros 1000s. Long discontinued but I troll flea bay for em and there are good deals to be had. Smooth, light, great drag.

Are you suggesting Matt Allen takes sponsorship money from St. Croix? Pretty sure that is not the case. In fact, I don’t think he is sponsored by any manufacturers, other than getting a cut of TW stuff his viewers buy through his links. My take is that Matt and Tim promote stuff they fish with and like, versus stuff from manufacturers they are sponsored by. Which places them squarely in the minority of YouTubers. (I don’t begrudge YouTubers getting manufacturer money, as long as they are transparent about it.)

Well, I can tell you what doesn’t work well: spinning gear. My first few outings with free rig were amazing in terms of fish hooked but I was using a Medium Fast spinning rod with 12 lb braid and a 1/8 ounce weight along weed edges and every time the fish took me into the slop I had to literally reach down and grab the fish out; that rod was totally overpowered. I haven’t used any of my baitcasters yet and I have your rod power/action covered so I am eager to hear how they work so far, and what other people use. But it is definitely a fish-catcher. I use Bull Flat mostly. Great for generating bites, but very fragile bait. Head blows out after almost every fish.

I play mini-hooky: local spot 10 minutes from my house. I work from home and so I’ll occasionally do a 2-hour lunch session or start and quit work early and get an evening session in.

x2. I went on a walleye guide trip on the Delaware a few years back. Never fished for walleye and that day it was a really subtle bite on jigs. I got maybe 2 fish and the guide spent the whole day fishing—not guiding!—and caught 15. Towards the end of the trip I called him on his *** and he basically said it’s not my fault if you suck. What an arsehole. On the flip side, every time I’ve been guided on smallie trips on Lake Champlain it’s been a blast because the guide service I use is amazing. Gotta find the good ones then stick with em.

I do have an inshore spinner that I used for back bay fishing out of yak. But I bring 2-3 rods in yak and like at least one of em to be a baitcaster.

Great feedback, thanks! Tranx wins! Will report back when I have some time on the water with it.

How about the Tranx 150? (6.7 versus 8.3 ounces) This will mostly be used for lighter plastic jigs for flounder and flukes up to 1/2 ounce max. Although the 200 gives me flexibility to use it for bigger baits when needed. Can the 200 handle lighter stuff?

Anyone have any experience with this one? I just got back from an amazing kayaking trip in Oak Island, NC and caught a ton of big flounder and sea trout in the back bays. So now I have the bug to do more saltwater fishing in my local waters and need a salt-friendly baitcaster that won’t break the bank. (My top choice would be a Chronarch G but I don’t have the coin for that). https://www.lews.com/en/shop/reels/casting/ssn1ac

x2. Effortless. Freaked me out so much when I first got it, I thought there was something wrong with the reel! So smooth and silent if felt completely “other” compared to my Shimano Curados and SLXs. Definitely getting another one, as soon as I can scratch up sone extra coin (and that’s a lotta coin, even for JDM, which I bought the first time around).

Where did you get the SLX for $39?? That’s a crazy good deal. Where did you get the SLX for $39?? That’s a crazy good deal.

You have more details on how to sign up for text alerts and get that deal?

Update: got the return reel from TW with a note on receipt saying that Lew’s reels ship with nothing but a plain box. So I got the same reel back in a plain box. Wish the phone rep told me that instead of agreeing with me that it was “weird” to get it that way, and that I should return it. Frankly this was the first negative experience I’ve had with TW so I will chalk it up to an honest mistake and move on. Spooled up the reel with some extra 50 lb PP I had laying around, went to my local pond and caught a nice chunk on a frog. Geez it’s a good deal at $63. Easy to dial in, smooth, thinking of buying another if I can find it at that price and spooling it up with mono for some topwater action.

Yup, for $100 I’d get Shimano SLX any day of the week. Or save up another $30 for the XT, which has external dial. But for $63 I figured it’d be good for topwater/mono setup. What mono do you use? I’ve been a Berkeley Trilene XL guy for years. But all of my fluoro is Sunline or Seagar so thinking of trying one of theirs…they both make good stuff. Can’t beat the price of Trilene though… $7 on Amazon for 300 yards!

Good point, thanks!!

That’s good information they gave you. But it’s not the information their customer service rep gave me. I wish he had: I would have avoided the wasted time of mailing it back to them.

No owner’s manual. I returned it. We shall see what I get back. Basically, whatever I get back I will use and not obsess over my $63 purchase. But this will probably be the last reel I buy from TW, especially if the packaging I get back is more thorough, meaning something shady happened with the first one. At least I got someone on phone quickly—that’s a lot better than some sellers out there. I also agree that as a site advertiser it’d be nice for someone at TW to respond to this thread. Now I’m going to fondle my Zillion to wash away the frustration over all of this.

Well, I think that’s kind of ridiculous. How much does it cost to slap a plastic bag on the reel so i at least know I’m the first one to use the thing? I called TW and the guy said it sounded weird… and that I should send it back for an exchange. Now from what I’m reading here I may be wasting my time and will just get another exposed reel in an otherwise empty box. I guess I’ll find whether it makes any difference. Still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Never had this before with any of the Shimano, Daiwa, Quantum or Abu reels I have.

Nope. Clearance/new. Rumor has it they are coming out with updated version at iCast so clearing out current stock.

TW had great deal on this reel: $63. So it comes today like this; no plastic bag, no schematic, no warranty card, etc. Seems sketchy to me. Reel feels/looks fine otherwise. Should I be worried?

What size and type hook do you use for the 7” burner worms?

Wow! Just grabbed one of these, thanks for the heads-up! Don’t really need another reel but this is too good a deal to pass up. Been hearing about for years as one of the best $100 reels on market (along with Shimano SLX, which is not on sale).