Bent

I bought a Stradic a few months back, and at the time I thought long and hard about whether or not to go for the Ci4+. Before you take the plunge be sure to spend some time hunting for a good deal - I found a brand new FK 2500 for $120 on eBay, but had a harder time finding a similar deal on the Ci4+. At that price I couldn't pass up the FK, and I'm very satisfied with it. Also, sorry to hear about the damages to your home, best wishes to you and yours during the recovery.

I'm in the Cedar Rapids area. Sending a PM.

Sorry about the terrible quality, couldn't find a pic online so snapped a photo of the magazine with my phone.

I've had the same experience with my Curado 200I, it performs well but needs a drop of oil pretty frequently. I also have a Curado 70, and greatly prefer the feel and aesthetics of it to the 200I. Hoping the new Curado is another step in that direction.

Anybody else see the full page ad for the new Curado 200? Black finish and Micro Module gears!

We have plenty of hogs in Iowa, but not too many "hawgs". I fish in a small club, and the competition makes the search for that quality bite exhilarating, even if a kicker means 4 or 5 pounds instead of 8+ on a trophy lake down south. It's all relative.

Can you describe the rest of your setup? I bought a Curado 70, MXF rod, and 20lb braid for exactly the same applications and had crazy overruns my first time out with it. I think I had the spool a little bit overfilled and definitely didn't have the brakes turned up high enough. Now I have no issues throwing weightless 5" senkos and super flukes if I set the dial at 6 with 3 brakes on. I'm satisfied with the casting distance with the brakes turned up that high.

I fish as a co-angler in a small club, but I'm otherwise fishing from the bank. My setup/tackle choices for tournaments and bank fishing are one and the same, I want just a few setups to cover everything. I have a 3700 size Plano bag for tournaments and four or five combos ranging from medium light to extra heavy, but when I'm bank fishing I almost always carry just one. The only exceptions are when I have a long hike from my car to get to the area I want to fish, or if I'm at a spot where there is really limited access to the bank and I'm forced to stay put. I typically put a small Plano box and some soft plastics in a drawstring bag and work my way down the bank away from my car. If I don't get bit, I change baits and work my way back to the car, and then switch to a different setup. If there's more bank than I can possibly hit in a short trip I basically don't stop moving until I get bit, lugging around multiple rods and my 3700 size tackle bag is too cumbersome for that approach.

I'm in a similar position, I have a handful of setups with various brands of rods and reels and I'm still in the process of figuring out what I like and don't like. I would recommend setting a rod and reel budget for the rest of the year, and allocate your spending within that budget according to just a few criteria: 1. Will I use these techniques often? 2. Is sensitivity important for these techniques? 3. Do I need a specialized reel for these techniques (light weights for BFS, high line capacity for big swimbaits, maximized casting distance for deep cranking, etc.)? Start with a roughly $250 setup (e.g. Dobyns Fury and Daiwa Tatula CT) as your baseline, and move up for each yes from the questions above (how much is up to you). Buy nicer gear for the things you do the most. Spend more on sensitive rods for bottom contact presentations. Above all else, don't spend money on something you already know you will want to replace.

I think this depends heavily on where you fish and how you fish. I fish as a tournament co-angler primarily on the Mississippi River, what I need is very different from somebody fishing as, for example, a boater in Florida. If you're looking for actionable advice, without a few more details you may end up with recommendations that you'd never touch in a tournament. Or maybe you're just interested in a hypothetical discussion of 12 setups that would allow you to fish any tournament, any time of year, any body of water?

Curado 200 or 70? The 200 will hold A LOT of 30lb power pro (more than a 150 yd spool). Some guys will use cheap mono backing to fill up 1/4 to 1/2 of the spool so you don't have 20 bucks of line you'll never see buried deep. Personally, I have just a handful of combos with varying line sizes/types and I don't run into this problem, my deeper spools (e.g. Curado 200) have straight fluoro, mono, or 65lb braid depending on the application, and my only combo with a shallow spool (Curado 70) has 30lb braid to flouro.

Nothing gets under my skin quite like people leaving their trash laying around. I try to clean up and be a positive force rather than let it ruin my day, but bank fishing rarely raises my confidence in humanity... last summer at one of my favorite spots I found what seemed like an entire spool of line in random tangles, a handful of big carp left to rot on the bank, an empty 30 pack with all the cans crushed up, packaging from baits, etc. all strewn around a smoldering fire fueled by more trash (including plastic bottles).

Also should mention, the most recent email I got (this morning) was titled "Liquidation prices! Preparing for the new Gander Mountain."

At the very least, every single location is liquidating inventory. Imprecise language has created a ton of conflicting stories. Check the news that is featuring Marcus Lemonis' twitter. Lemonis' claims that many stores will remain open is firsthand news from ownership - for the time being, can't trust anything over that in my opinion.

Thanks for the recommendations! Decided to go with the Fury 663.

I'm thinking about picking up a shorter rod that could double for short casts with spinnerbaits in close quarters and walking topwater baits. Anybody have experience with the new St. Croix Bass X 6'6" MHF, Dobyns Fury 663, or 664?

I also use the FG knot, and I tie long leaders so that I don't have to retie on the water. The FG knot is a pain to tie but it is amazingly thin and strong, I let it go through the guides and don't have issues with connection knots failing. I don't know if it affects the number of bites I get, and in theory I think the only way you could know would be to have two anglers of equal skill fishing exactly the same presentations for a HUGE number of hours in varying conditions to get a meaningful sample. On that day you still got bites with straight braid, how do you know you wouldn't have gotten more (or fewer) with a leader? That question alone isn't enough to get me to go through the trouble - one of the lakes I fish often has really clear water, I can't imagine that straight braid would get more bites, and I have confidence in my connection knot, so I tie a leader. I know I'd still catch fish without the leader, but I feel better having it tied on.

Thanks for the recommendation! I haven't really looked into Megabass rods. As far as 2 rods, I have considered stepping down to the DC744 and then saving up a little bit more to pick up a lighter combo that would be a bit cheaper, but I'm hoping to get away with one really nice combo instead.

I'm in the market for a jig rod, and I'm hoping to find one that can handle a couple of applications really well. About half of the time I'm fishing nearby small rivers and creeks for smallmouth, and would like to use braid to a 10 lb fluoro leader with 1/4 oz finesse jigs, weightless senkos, and Northern-style swim jigs with light wire hooks. The rest of the time I'm on bigger bodies of water and want to use a 15 lb fluoro leader and 3/8 to 1/2 oz football jigs with a stout hook. I already have another combo for pitching jigs to heavy cover, so I don't need a ton of backbone. Would a DX744 or DX784 handle 1/4 oz finesse jigs, or am I asking for trouble with lighter line and hooks? Would the DX743 be underpowered when fishing structure in 30' of water with 1/2 oz football jigs? Lastly, I'm currently leaning toward the DX line but I'm open to other suggestions, i.e. if you feel strongly that a particular rod at a lower price point will perform just as well, or the extra $100 for a GLX is money well spent for these applications, please let me know! Thanks!