Beetlebz

I'm more upset that you aren't long-arming that bass ? I go out in a baseball cap, huk ice gaiter and aegend sleeves. I hear people laugh, don't care. I feel so much better after a day in the sun, they probably go home and nap. I win.

Lol you won't regret it my friend

Dude I feel your pain. I've bought 5 bait casters this year. I only fish 3. But yeah no, I'm always in the same boat... I can't help you ? Now's the time though.... this eBay sale is a PITA to use compared to some of the other ones but it's a good deal if you do the leg work.

For someone who has the baitcaster thumb in the bag, casitas. For someone looking to get the most out of a baitcaster or someone who isn't a pro-thumb, fuego all day.

I mean, you can do alot with it... you aren't limited very much being that it's spinning. No reason you can't throw Texas or Carolina rigs on it, spinnerbaits chatterbaits swimbaits... all should do ok on a MH inshore rod.

Legit. I do ok with my VBS shimano reel (singular now lol) but if I'm wrong on my settings when I cast after changing lures I find out *really* fast lol

Nice fish! To be honest I got my 8.1 fuego for flipping and pitching. I've been spending all spring throwing heavy moving baits with it (on the 7'6" heavy still) so much I might have to get another one. I always thought guys who primarily fish with heavy power rods were crazy, but the magforce brakes let you still cast decently even though the rod is barely loading up. Now, I get it. Oi, try explaining that one to the wife ?

You can always get 10% off using MF10 I think. Ben Milliken mentions it frequently in his videos. I use the code a little too often ?

It depends on a ton of things. Lure weight, ballistic coefficient of the lure, line weight, guide size, rod length and action balance of spool brake settings... a ton of stuff goes into making a bomb cast. Between the two I would say that a baitcaster is more capable of consistently launching the bomb casts, but it's a moot point. Jerk baits and deep crank baits are the only lures I bomb, maybe you could include bottom contact baits for shore guys, but accuracy is far more important than distance. My 7'6" heavy favorite defender with 65lb braid could almost spool itself on the cast If I was throwing a 1.5oz swimbait but how often am I flinging a 1.5oz bullet through the air.

The magforce Z brakes are hands down the simplest, easiest, and most forgiving brakes out right now. Period! I've literally bet people at the launch that they can't backlash it mid cast. ain't lost yet.

I've been running a deeper pro+ since the winter. During the winter I would cast it, once the ice was gone and I could get out on the yak I use the flexible arm clamp (which I got on Amazon for way below what deeper sells them for). For finding fish I'm not sure I trust it a ton. Is it a school of fish? A clump of weeds? If I'm sitting still and not paddling, it's anyone's guess. Where it excels is in depth, contour, bottom composition and water temperature. As for the maps. The pro+ has the gps which is nice. As you paddle around in boat mode it splits the screen (adjustable) into sonar and map. As long as you don't delete the history logs, the next time you go it continually compiles bottom contour data onto the map. You can't see this if you use the map function, but it appears in the map screen in boat mode. Maybe a future software update could patch that, it would be a nice addition. For battery life I get about a good 4-5 hours I'd say of constant use. More often than not I use it to figure out water temp and find a spot to start, then once I'm on a pattern I take it out of the water to shut it off and save the battery. The bigger issue was phone battery life. As said phone screens or hard to read in direct sunlight so having the brightness jacked all the way up really sucks the life out of the battery. I stopped on Amazon and grabbed a portable battery and it's enough to about double the battery life of my phone to just about that of the deeper. The only real change I plan to make the season is to get a small clear Pelican case to hold my phone and battery pack they keep them up out of the water should disaster strike. All in all I'm pretty happy with the money I spent. Hope that helps!

I use mono for topwaters on fast action rods. The stretch helps make up for the faster action of the rod. If I had room for another rod I would run a mod or mod fast and braid would do dandy.

I suspect that youre right, it was a function of teeth more than breaking strength. I've had surprise pike bite off chatterbaits when I fish the river. YZH is a pretty tough line and it's got that just right amount of stretch.. I've hauled in some pigs in some slop with it. I've even gotten it snagged and used it to pull myself in to unsnag it on my kayak, then kept fishing without retying. Big game is pretty tough line, might hold up to the teeth a little better. A short leader of big bore big game tied on to the YZH might be a plan too for moving baits in pike waters.

This man speaks the truth. At that price you can't really go wrong. Also the earth might blow up.

I gotta agree. It seems that daiwa is hell-bent on getting some of the market back. They have really brought their game up with the current models. The thing is, anytime they make a reel that comes really close to shimano in quality and/or features they manage to blow it out a few bucks less. Chevy did it to Ford back in 2014.. now daiwa is trying to steal the show. The casitas is 90, the fuego is 70. The citica is 150, the tatula is 120. It's not that they're necessarily Lock Stock & Barrel better, but they are certainly striving for best value. JMHO. If I was buying a reel in the price range I wouldn't hesitate on another Fuego.

Aye. Anyone can pump out a bad reel or a bad part, no doubt they will make it right! My fuego has been perfect.

,I have been really pretty impressed with the current daiwa lineup. I have never given daiwa a second look until recently but now that I have I'm becoming a convert. Daiwa or shimano is where my money goes. So look at it feature to feature. The lews has a carbon drag, I believe the fuego has felt. Does it matter in a bass reel? No, not really, but it's a data point lol moot or not! The daiwa has a thread on handle. Some people can feel a difference, some can't. I like the feel of it alot but I'll be the first to admit that you completely forget it's there 10 minutes into fishing. I haven't put my hands on the lews, just comparing features. And based on the features, it doesn't really matter as far as I can tell. It seems like everybody knows somebody that's had a bad experience with something... get which ever one you want and fish it. Any manufacturer can put out a bad reel and any one of those manufacturers is going to replace it. Period. You can't make a super bad choice here.

So I thought they should have but and didn't, then today I went out post storm after the rain stopped when the bite should have been at its worst, I thoroughly cleaned up. A MVMT 80x, a power worm and a chatterbait. I even got a bass trying to catch some panfish on a 1/8 jig and grub. I got a bunch of perch too ? Moral of the story, bass are weird man. It is what it is I suppose.

Well now that's something I've never considered before. Some of my best bites were right at the beginning of nasty little thunderstorms. The kind where you get drenched in the 4 minutes it takes to get the yak on the car. I had never considered the speed of the front. That makes a tremendous amount of sense.

Hmm. Maybe it was just a fluke. I regret not throwing the chatterbait. I should have taken some time to dive a little deeper water with cranks too. That's about the only water I didn't cover. Oh well, there will be other storms.

So it's no big surprise that the drop in pressure before a big ole storm makes the fish eat. Today we had a huge storm, like multiple tornados big storm (in new england!) And I was out on my kayak until the rain started. I didn't do BAD but it wasn't quite the slaunch fest I was expecting. All teeny guys on the squarebill up shallow. I only caught one dragging a Texas rigged power worm, which has been cleaning house lately. The flipping craw bite didn't happen once. What do you guys throw when the storm is looming to slay the bigguns?

I bought the 8.1 for Jigs, flipping and froggin. What I'm throwing moving baits, like you guys said, I can just slow down. I throw a ChatterBait on it but also in the dead of Summer I'll use it for big cranks running deep, extra heavy Carolina rigs and 1 oz spinner baits and chatterbaits. It's still pretty easy to get a "slow burn" out of it ?

Don't overlook the fact that the chatterbait is still a jig. If the bite gets particularly tough you can always fish it like one. Craw trailer and I fish it with hops instead of dragging, like I would an arky or flipping jig. That vibration during the hops is like a strobe light to call in fish. Just a little audible if they won't bite it by swimming it. I don't fish it alot like this, buts it helped and gotten bites on tough days. My go to when I'm afraid that I might get skunked is a light t-rigged 7" power worm (a heavier shakey head, 1/4 or so works too) fished slow with alot of soak time.

Just my $0.02 but for an extra 15 bucks or so you can move up to the casitas which has the new centrifugal brakes AND magnetic brakes. Makes it easy to dial in the just right amount of brakes for bomb casts. The caenan lacks the mag brakes so it's adjustable but not AS adjustable. The daiwa fuego is a stellar reel for caenan money too. If it were my money i would try to find another few bucks to go to the casitas, if that's not an option the caenan isn't a bad choice. For my cranking set up I went to 10lb Yozuri Hybrid this season and I'm pretty happy with it. I ran 15lb last season, I thought it fished too heavy for anything but lipless and squarebills. 12lb might be a better fit, but i haven't broken off with 10 yet.

Not specifically, but i run 15lb YZH on mine. I might swap it out to 15lb big game this week which is just as wirey as 15lb abrazx.. hell I might even try abrazx. Haven't had any problems with the YZH... I'll keep you posted about the big game.