Glaucus

I've lived in the North all my life and I've caught exactly 1 muskie. It was last year during a tournament using a KVD 1.5. Total accident. I thought it was a huge bass that would have won it for me. I was so mad when I started to realize the fight just didn't feel right, and then I saw it. I released it quickly without a picture because I was mad at it lol. Minutes later I regretted that so much. Should have captured that moment. But... I don't fish for muskie and I currently don't care if I ever catch one again. But if I do I will snap a picture. Hahahahaha where I caught my muskie was at a muskie lake I'd never been to before. Leading up to the tournament my buddy was telling me all about it and that he'd been fishing there for years and had never caught one and that I won't either since we don't target them. Your hypothetical response is basically what I was telling him when we met up later. But of course I know it was all dumb luck.

You just know he and the squad want to take the video down. Marketing fail. But the damage is done and it would be a bad look.

It's still beautiful to me. ?

Our industry prides itself on ethics and morality, and being different than other sports and businesses. It's a people first industry. Well, that's the idea they give off, and for the most part that's true. That's the problem I think, but in the end it's the corporate elites being all about money.

Both

Maaaaaan he shouldn't have launched to begin with. That's wild.

Right?! I learned from reading and somehow I ended up on YouTube to see how things were done. I didn't catch on that it was a big thing until far too late. Now there are many far better channels with far better fisherman with far better personalities and they don't have a fraction of the following because it's essentially owned by these stars. It's almost impossible for a new channel to take off. Ndyakangler has some of the best content in my opinion. He's been at it for like 5 years but sits at 20k subscribers while Jon B and Lunkers sit at 1 million. To their credit they try to help other channels take off but it just doesn't work.

Young people who grew up on watching Jon B, LFG, Peric, Lunkers TV etc. They taught a lot of people how to fish before they became a business.

To be clear I didn't literally mean your as in you. Those sticks with names on them are YouTube fisherman. They got on the scene early, gathered hundreds of thousands of even a million plus subscribers, started making unimaginable money off their channels, got together over the years, and now they're the Googan Squad. That's why I call them gimmicky. Making rods to bear the names of YouTube stars. Also baseball rods. It's like getting an expensive Spiderman rod LOL Those guys have a cult following and they're taking advantage of it. I mean I would too.

I don't use them so I'm not sure. I'd bet that you're paying for your YouTube hero's name.

Ponds will thaw out and warm faster. I'd pick a river for Smallies over lakes and ponds right now (but this depends on location for a lot of people). Rivers stay open for the most part and Smallies operate in cooler temps than LM do.

A lot of those Favorite rods are gimmicky. https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Favorite_Casting_Rods/catpage-FAVEC.html

Daiwa Legalis fits. ... Pflueger...

You should have seen the video Lake Fork Guy dropped the other day. He went to Florida for a wedding and only brought a spinning reel with him. He went to the store and got a cheap rod to pair it up with to fish on his last day with 3 hours to go before his flight home. The reel juuuuuust happened to be the Googan reel off their $60 combo. He was putting it on display HARD lol. He made sure every shot showed the Googan branding on it. The thing sounded like an ancient coffee grinder. It was so bad and so obvious that he got blasted in the comments. I've never heard a new reel sound so bad. But the plastics are good.

Googan plastics, while not durable, are pretty good.

I clarified in that thread that after testing it appears Pflueger was the culprit to the problem. Also, the broken guide and bent rod were done in shipping and storage, which isn't Dobyns fault. My Legalis reels are arriving in about an hour and I will post pictures of them on the rods in that thread. Edit - I quoted the wrong post. Look at my post above. I meant to quote you.

On the one hand, they have to make money. On the other hand, they're pushing baits that they know aren't very good to people who don't have their kind of money. In the end, we all have the duty to pay attention and not base our decision making on what we think everyone else is doing.

I know you were lol but still I'm serious. I was gonna get an HMG for the extra reel and give it to my wife but honestly but we didn't need it. I'll PM The 30 is off limits tho. That's going on the HMG I have with no reel on it.

If you really want it you can have it. Saves me from buying a rod for it. I've seen where your fishing budget isn't great so I'd love to do that.

I've spent all winter upgrading my gear, my wife's gear, and my son's gear. I've done extensive research. That's why I settled on Dobyns. A normal President should fit them. First page proves that. I got unlucky and got 2 Presidents that do not. The reel feet between the 2 are slightly different sizes and shapes too. Not noticeable unless you're seriously comparing them after running into a problem like mine.

If you look very, very closely almost every rod has the slightest imperfection when it comes to being straight. It's so slight you don't even notice. That's what's normal. What's not normal is when the bend is strong and is noticeable by mistake because it's just so obviously not straight. And that's how that one Fury is. My wife actually noticed first. She says, hey did you see that one is bent? And she doesn't inspect gear like a typical OCD fisherman lol. However I sent it and the broken guide rod back for exchanges. Also my Legalis reels come in tomorrow and I anticipate them fitting the spinning rods just fine. The bent one looks like a rod does when it's leaning against the wall a little bit. Mostly verticle, but slightly leaning. No way that's normal. Awhile back I was noticing some rods like this in stores and looked it up. Aaron Martens has some information about it. He says that's what happens when a rod is stored improperly. It takes the bend over time and then ruined. I trust him.

You're not understanding me and that's OK. I'm not mad at Dobyns any longer.

That some manufacturers don't fit the same as others. Valid point. However, Presidents fit other Fury rods perfectly fine as seen in this thread. If Pflueger was consistent in their reel feet, then it would be the rod, not the reel manufacturer. So I wouldn't be able to buy that considering I see that a standard President will fit just fine.

Guys, we discovered Pflueger is at fault. The reel feet on the reels are different sizes from each other. I ordered 2 Legalis reels to replace them. Hopefully those have a better fit. However had it been the rods, I don't accept this answer, but I guess that's why you guys said to call and not email. The reason I don't is because there's visual proof of Presidents fitting perfectly in this very thread. PS I would never use tools to tighten my reels down lol