Boomstick

Over the course of the year, I probably use 80% of the lures I own. The next year I may use some of the 20% that I didn't the prior year. On a regular basis, it's probably about 10%. Let's say I have my favorites. For example in calm and open water, my topwater of choice is a popper. In the spring and fall, small, poppers are often my most effective lure. In the summer, sometimes I'll throw on a jerkbait in the day and switch to a popper at night. So I almost always have a popper on.

I have got a couple of their baits in Mystery Tackle Boxes. They're decent enough, my problem with their stuff is they're really just copies of other brands, but made a little larger, when I rarely need a larger profile bait than what's been available as standard sizes. But you know what was bad? They had signature series rods from Favorite that were $150 some years back. They had a bunch in a store in my area and you could hold the rod halfway down the middle and flick the tip and couldn't feel a thing, probably the deadest rod I have ever seen that should have been $20 but they jacked the price up. Those rods were beyond just bad. I haven't seen their newer signature rods, but at least they made them cheaper, but after how bad the prior line was, I definitely couldn't be bothered.

It's going to be hard for me to pick 5 that you should get rid of, but I'm going to try to pick ones I would minimally keep. First, I'm keeping both spinning reels. I have three, but two would be my acceptable minimum if I was really trying to downsize. I would keep Shimano reels for lures you just want to cast out and want max distance and aren't pitching or skipping, and Daiwa for anything you pitch or skip. Fortunately you have a nice combination here. I would keep the Steez A with 16# fluorocarbon for spinnerbaits, chatterbaits, swim jigs etc I would keep the Metanium B for crankbaits, jerkbaits and other stuff you could run on 10# or 12# fluorocarbon. I would keep the Zillion SV for jigs and t-rigs with 16# fluorocarbon. I would keep the Chronarch MGL 8:1 and use it 10# or 12# mono for topwater. I would keep the Metanium B DC for 12# fluorocarbon for T-Rigs. I would keep the Team Daiwa Zillion and use it with 50-65# braid for frogs. I would optionally keep the Daiwa T3 7.1:1 and run 16# fluocarbon and use it for T-Rigs when you want something a little heavier. Alternatively, you could run 14# on the Chromarch MGL and put something much heavier like 20# fluoro on the T3. You're going to want a faster reel for prop baits with 14# or 17# mono. My personal take is it makes no difference if it's a good reel or not in function and I don't throw them often, but 6.1:1 reels cause my joints to hurt throwing them for a while. This means I would get rid of the Lexa, first gen Tatula, and the 6.1:1 T3 and maybe the 7.1:1 T3, but I would be inclined to keep that one, and get one more cheap 7.1:1 or 8.1:1 for prop baits.

This stuff lasts forever. The apocalypse will come and a thousand years later, you can just add some water to the jar and it'd still be good.

All I'll say is cork on expensive rods pits too, sometimes as bad or worse than cheap rods.

I learned how to skip with my 7'5" rod while seated. In fact, I didn't even "learn", it just hit me like I was touched by the hands of God and he said "you can now skip like a pro". I was on a lake without a lot of cover but they had docks, so I figure let's skip some docks. Now I don't even know why I didn't stand and skip like I always did in the past, but I attempted to skip it seated - something I never did before, but my first attempt was absolutely perfect. I told my kid who was there with me "wow, if I can do that again, that cast deserves a fish!" and did the exact cast again and caught a largemouth. From that point out, I land maybe 9/10 attempts perfectly.

It's coming up on sale season, you might be able to get a Tatula rods in your price range. They're pretty good.

Ten years ago was the best time, but since that's not an option, usually the end of the season is the best time, but generally you'd be better off buying today rather than tomorrow either way. Now with aggressive US tariffs, if that policy changes it might be better to wait, but there's annual price hikes regardless. You can sometimes land deals at late winter/early spring boat shows too. I was looking at a Ranger RT188 at Bass Pro shops yesterday. It was priced at almost 50k. I almost bought one just a few years ago for around $26k that was pretty loaded out.

So basically magnetic brakes will get better across the board.

The nice thing about a frog reel is that you don't need anything special. As long as it holds enough line and casts alright, you should be fine. A higher gear ratio is nice, but not required. If you fail to find something on the used market, an Abu Garcia Black Max will work,.

I like my Steez SV/Steez AGS combo, but it's probably not actually worth it in the long run.

For a rod, the Doybyns 735C might work for you. It's a lighter powered rod, generally what people would use for throwing frogs. The 765FLIP would be better for 1.5oz weights. For a reel, you don't need much. I use a Tatula CT currently and have used a Tatula 150 for a while until the side panel came off and won't stay on (still need to look at seeing if I can fix it). I generally opt for a reel with a full spool of 50-65# braid so I can use it for punching or frogging.

Now you are getting into the further complexity of action. Power is usually consistent across a brand. Sometimes they decide to change it in newer lines, but across that line it should be consistent and over time it will propagate to the brand. Where things get a little crazy is the tip flex. Many rods of the same power can have different powered tips. Extra fast rods usually don't have the strongest tips and some have very soft tips, but it's a short tip so it doesn't really matter. When you get to fast rods that are more on the moderate fast side though, if you have a real soft tip, that might make it more of a cranking rod and if the tip is a bit stiffer it's your typical bass rod. Manufacturers generally know who they're targeting with a rod, so they usually make rods in these applications, but even so I've seen some pretty big variances based on tip strength. At the end of the day it comes down to personal preference.

That's the ideal spinnerbait rod. Some people call them 70/30 rods, 30% tip, 70% backbone

For me, it's a Steez SV. That reel behaves beautifully and is super light. Would upgrading all of my Tatula SV's to Steez SVs be worth it? Functionally, the Steez does brake a little better and cast a little further, but at three times the price, no. But it is nice to have.

I would usually use a medium heavy fast rod for spinnerbaits. A medium heavy mod. fast or a fast that leans more moderate fast can work very well if you're on your game with hooksets as it helps not pull the bait out of the fish's mouth but it's also harder to drive that hook home. Using braid with a moderate fast helps a little.

Even better, a couple weeks ago I hooked what could have been a PB bass or a giant pike and then snagged at the same time. I had hooked it on a dropshot and I could not make any ground on this fish it was so strong. This went on for several minutes. Eventually it got to the point where it felt like I snagged something, but if I stopped pulling I could still feel it tugging. Eventually the tugging stopped. I was fishing around a floating dock, and I must have wrapped my line around an anchor line. I have lost lures to this line before, but never like this.

With fluorocarbon, the palomar can skip and is generally not a good knot. The uni with 4-6 is very solid.

You can check the diameter of the mono you are using, and the fluorocarbon you are looking at. Generally, 8lb mono would be 10lb fluorocarbon but some are different. Berkley Trilene fluorocarbon is the same diameter as XT or Big Game mono.

My only good copoly experience has been YoZuri Hybrid. That stuff is all around pretty good and quite strong and I can recommend it in good conscience. I also tried Sufix Advance and had my line break casting multiple times, and P-Line Fluoroclear which handled absolutely terribly to the point it was basically unusable.

Not at all. Like all Daiwa reels, it's very easy. So as a rule of thumb with Daiwa reels, you basically don't have to touch the tension knob. It should be set when it arrives, if not, tighten it a little and loosen it until the spool just begins to click and you won't have to touch it again. I use 16# fluorocarbon (Daiwa J-Fluoro Samurai specifically, that line handles great) on mine. I usually just set the brakes at 8 and I don't have to worry about thumbing the spool. It casts adequately far, so I figure I might keep it easy. If there's wind or I'm doing tougher casts or sometimes for pitching I may set it at 10, and for skipping docks, I'll turn that up to at least 14, usually 16 if I'm confident in my skipping abilities, but I used 20 last week as I hadn't skipped anything in a while. With the brake on 8, it performs similar to my Tatula SVS on 10, and 16 is very close to the Tatula SVs on 20. But the Steez SV casts further.

I have a Daiwa Tatula 7'6" flipping rod. They call it MH/F, but it's basically a "flipping MH" (heavy). It has more than enough power for anything I'd ever need.

Well I can't comment as much on the rods, but the Steez SV is a really nice reel. It actually brakes better and casts further at the same time than say a Tatula SV.

I find a lot of the mass produced Connecticuts tend to run a little bitter. If you have a store that carries small batch brands, see if you can find a Dunbarton Brulee blue. They're aged until they get sweet, I'd be willing to bet you'd like them (they're a pretty safe bet with everyone). Also the Aganorsa Leaf Anniversario Connecticut is probably my favorite Connecticut wrapper cigar ever if you can find it, a little bit spicy but still light and smooth. The Acid's being flavored tend to be on the lighter side as a lineup. The maduro is probably the best in the lineup to be honest, but I don't really go for flavored cigars much myself.

I haven't had any issues with them yet.