Stephen B

I agree. Remember also that St Croix actually manufacturers there own blanks in Wisconsin and blanks for there budget rods in there facility in Fresnillo, Mexico. Dobyns is sourcing blanks.

Hey buddy! The Curado has brass gears in them stock. All the reels you are looking at are phenomenal and no way you can go wrong. If you aren't set on spending the money on a Met MGL, I highly suggest the Chronarch MGL.

I've owned a Metanium MGL and had absolutely no issues and still feels as smooth as when I bought it. I have spoken with many reel techs from Shimano as well as Dan Isaac at Reelex and they say the aluminium gears don't like current or fishing really heavy resistance baits. I only fish bottom contact stuff on my MGLs. If you do that, no issues will arise. BTW swapping out from aluminium to brass main gears will void your warranty with Shimano. Just make sure its what you want to do and its worth it.

I live in the area only about 20 mins away and you are correct about Lake Eufaula. Last weekend with the weather conditions lately we have gotten, the fish have gotten shallow. The water is high and muddy. A lot of fish caught on chatterbaits, swimjigs, squarebills. However, with the big cold front pushing through, they should push off a bit IMO. But definitely, Eufaula is known for some of the best ledge fishing in the country. In the spring and summer, tournaments are consistently pulling weights 25+ lbs.

99% sure just copying a similar look. Highly doubt Shimano is building reel for Enigma

That's tough. I think both the Expride and Megabass are the best rods in there price range. It just depends on which application you plan to utilize the rod for as each rod series has rods that I like in certain situations. What do you plan to use the rod for?

Skip both and get a Megabass Orochi XX or Expride. Prefer those both to the Helium 3 and ALX Zolo. Just my preference as I have fished all 4 rods: Zolo, Helium 3, XX, and Expride.

IMO there are better reels out there in the same price range. I'm more of a Shimano/Daiwa person regarding reel choices, but I recommend getting your hands on all the reels/rods your considering and deciding if you like it as everyone has a different preference. Goodluck buddy!

Definitely! I love college football and definitely respect all of it including all conferences. Have a great one buddy and good luck to your team on the upcoming season. Hopefully my boys, Alabama, can win the national championship on Monday.

Not like that. That's embarrassing. But look at the overall competition in the SEC (both divisions).Far from what has happened in the ACC in the past few years. The last 25 years, the SEC championship contained 2 ranked teams not a 6 loss team that was blown out multiple times by 30+ points. Have a great weekend! ROLL TIDE and SEC

You are correct in that I never said the ACC is trash but ever since FSU's decline the conference lacks another team to rival Clemson. Clemson is a phenomenal program and many of the other teams within the conference are good teams but by no means elite. While Alabama is slugging it with 11 win UGA in the SEC Championship game, Clemson is playing Pitt with 7 wins who was beaten by Penn State by over 40 points... How is a 7 win team in a conference championship? Not many teams period have beaten Alabama as they continue to win national championships.

I'm not diminishing the ACC conference as NC State, Syracuse, Miami,etc are good but the SEC is full of top end talent LSU, UGA, Texas A&M, Alabama, Mississippi State, Florida, Kentucky. After Clemson there is a significant decline in talent. Ever since FSUs decline it's been a Clemson walk in the park every year. Do you think Clemson would rather play Auburn, LSU, Alabama, Michigan, Ohio State, Oklahomas schedules or there own. I bet they are happy with theres. BTW I'm not a UGA fan. This is completely unbiased. Many of the analyst even bring up. Clemson is a phenomenal team and can easily compete with the other conferences but they don't have the competition to push them like they did when FSU was a great team. Also you have to remember that Clemson played Furman, Ga Southern on top of the weak ACC schedule. The ACC champsionship game was against Pitt, A 6 LOSS TEAM, who they beat by over 30 points.... How is a 6 loss team a divisional champion in a conference????

While Clemson is a very talented and very well coached team, the also have played nobody that can mimic an Alabama, LSU, UGA, etc. I honestly am still questioning how good Notre Dame even was. I'm not bad mouthing Clemson but the ACC conference has little competition to even match Clemson. I'd like to see Clemson continue to play better non-conference like they did this year against Texas A&M. Granted it was the first game, Clemson struggled.

Coming from an Alabama fan, I'm rolling with the Tide ?. Always will!

Agree 100%. The current interpretation of the rule is killing football and teams for the impact certain players have on the game.

Moral of the story is Geaux Tigers! Glad to see LSU having a great year and love Coach O!

I know what you mean but it's not as simple as just records. Notice that I said are just one measure and that I said often unfair meaning on occasion, not everytime. That's why I said there's no way to do it as every way has an inevitable flaw in ranking teams. Are you suggesting we should allow UCF and Notre Dame in the playoff since they were undefeated? Absolutely not. A record based approach is also flawed as I have illustrated above in Auburn, an 8-5 SEC West team beating the PAC 12 Champ who went to the Rose Bowl and played Ohio State close. What if 2 team are within one conference such as last year with UGA and Alabama? Are you saying an undefeated team is better since they didn't lose but didn't play any competition? We must understand that certain conferences and divisions and also team schedules are tougher and not use records as the ONLY source of information but also strength of schedule, the eye test such as if Alabama beats every opponent by X amount of points, etc. The only way to solve it is to play more out of conference games against legitimate opponents this will allow for the ranking system to have more correlations across conference to better rank teams and rank the strength of each conference. I could argue that many teams in the SEC West: Auburn, Alabama, Texas A&M, Mississippi State, and LSU have the potential to be undefeated in the PAC 12 conference, so unfortunately it's just the system we have to deal with. I have never mentioned Finebaum. Just some food for thought. Hopefully the NCAA will see the fans views such as ours hahaha. Roll Tide and go SEC!

Correct. You are right on the money. SEC all the way!

I don't think it will impact Shimano much. They make fabulous products, have a proven brand and reputation, and likely didn't see the benefit of sponsorship. I'm sure they did there homework in trying to quantify the cost-benefit to sponsoring a TV show/host. Likely the viewership of the shows didn't met there expectation thus they pulled there sponsorship. Just my guess.

LSU also had 8-9 starters suspended, injured, not playing due to the draft, or ejected. LSU was the better team. No excuses from either team.

Expanding the playoff will not solve anything. Alabama and Clemson being in the playoff illustrates that both semi final games were unnecessary as the top 2 teams still prevailed. All it is doing is requiring players to have to play more games and risk injury more. A 4 team playoff is adequate. Someone is always going to get left out and moving to 8 isn't going to solve it. A march madness approach will never work as football is too physical and too quick of turnaround is demanded from teams. The way to solve all this nonsense to make better non-conference match ups and having a good strength of schedule with teams with proven track records. For example, (using Clemson's schedule) Clemson plays Charlotte and Wofford with there already weak ACC schedule. My thinking is to remove the weak opponents and schedule top flight programs like UGA, LSU, Texas A&M, Oregon, Texas, Oklahoma, etc to replace those 2 opponents. This goes for every team including Ohio State, Alabama, UGA, Michigan, FSU, Oklahoma, Texas, LSU, etc. IMO the 4 best teams this year were Alabama, Clemson, UGA, Ohio State. Records are just one measure of judging a team but is often unfair as UGA had to play Alabama which would likely beat every team so that's not a good measure to use. Certain conferences and divisions within the conference are much tougher than others. We have a flawed system that will never be solved. A great example is that Auburn (an 8-5 team in the SEC West) beat the Pac-12 champion Washington Huskies who played Ohio State in the Rose bowl in a 28-23 game. Yet, Alabama wiped Auburn's face up by more than 30 points. Even a system of football math utilizing algorithms is flawed as different matchups will yield much different results. It's not as simply as suggested by most. UGA did what Alabama did years back in the Sugar Bowl against Oklahoma. Just simply a lack of focus and drive to win on UGA. UGA is a much more talented team but Texas wanted it more.

Great setups but why would you buy 10 of the same gear ratio Metanium MGL? What do you crank with? The lack of 6 or 7 gear ratio reels would drive me nuts haha.

This goes to show that all people have different experiences as I don't care for ALX rods at all. Every thing is not always meant to be for everyone. I recommend getting them in your hand before making a decision. I personally would look at the Megabass Levante being released in a month, the Shimano Zodias, Dobyns Champion, Daiwa Tatula Elite, and even looking at the Expride and Orochi XX.

For a variety of reasons. IMO shorter rod for making pinpoint casts into and around cover especially when in tighter quarters around docks. A lot of manufacturers make 2 or more spinnerbait rods like St Croix just to cover multiple utilizations. The have a Sniper Spinnerbait rod as well as a Sweeper spinnerbait. Hope that helps.

Dobyns Fury and St Croix Mojo Bass are among the best rods in that price range.