Beetlebz

Kinda hard to say without more info. For just all around use I'd say the tatula might be a better fit than the sv variant. The SV spool tends to be a tad over braked for most applications.

The one he missed was a universal code for 15% off. PARTYINUSA is still good for 20% but only certain vendors... which includes alpha2omega who normally has the lowest daiwa prices.

? professional angling association, presumably. I'm not sure if the PAA and NPAA are the same thing. The NPAA is what every Google search leads to, however there appears to be differences from what everyone here Is talking about. Still trying to get a clear answer myself. I've been looking for a club that does community stuff and offers discounts but so far...

This is all quite interesting... my first impressions are rather positive, I certainly hope those issues have been resolved. I'll continue fishing the heck out of it and report back if it doesnt go so well.

In my quest to find decent gear that isn't super expensive, I found myself yearning to try one of the current go-to recommendations on the forum for budget minded rods. I looked at the lightning rod, lightning rod shock, Daiwa Aird and the Daiwa Fuego for a new spinning rod that I can use at the river, for throwing senkos, or just for when the wife wants to come along. I settled on the fuego spinning rod in 7' medium (doesn't mention a tip action, but website says fast) to pair up with a 30 sized BPS tourney special reel that's been inexplicably sitting on top of my microwave for over a year. Spooled it up with hilarious lime 30lb 832 (bright lines are great, but will never not look silly) with an 8lb YZH leader that's about 15 feet long. I hit the reservoir this morning in the yak to do some jig fishing, but I brought this spinning rig instead of my ML finesse favorite/sahara combo. Once I found a quiet cove without wind I went to town with a 4/0 ewg and a red shad laminate shim-e-stick senko impersonator. It didn't take long to start having an absolute ton of fun. The website wasn't joking, that action is seriously fast. So fast that I think I would have a really unpleasant time trying to throw anything too much lighter than a senko. The trade off was instant and brutal hooksets. The combination of the braid and the fast tip made for some really dramatic moments of "is that a fish or a log?" resulting in only 1 missed bite. That indecision and either really early or really late hooksets have cost me a lot of bites and is one of the reasons I'm not huge on senkos. I was readily detecting bites and dropping the hammer on them. No giants today, but I pulled a few out of the grass. The rod had plenty of backbone and took it in stride. Now for the best part, I waited patiently for an ebay sale. I paid a total of $42 USD shipped to my door. If you had told me it was a $90 or $100 rod I would be a lot more critical of it, but I think at the end of the day I would believe it. Now there's a couple negatives I will hit on. First and foremost the balance could use some work. I'm using a 30 sized reel and with line on and ready to fish the balance point is about an inch past the top of the grip. Its certainly not bad and I didn't have any fatigue but it was a noticeable. It wouldn't take much to balance it. The other thing is the silly cork grip. It's actually pretty nice cork, but it's in a place where your hand won't ever touch it. On one hand that is kind of nice because it helps add weight to balance the rod a little bit. Personally I would much rather have the skeletonized split grip and actually weight the butt end to make up the difference for balance. Both issues are pretty moot for a $42 rod. Overall, I'm a happy camper... I give it 2 senkos up.

I start with a favorite defender 7'6" heavy fast (surprise surprise ?) and a tatula fuego CT reel. If I had to do it over again I would get an SV spooled reel, but I'm not losing sleep over it. Maybe when the tatula 100 sv comes out or when I can afford a zillion. For the $155 bucks or so I got into it, no complaints.

So first, let me preface this post by saying that I absolutely do intend to order a few eye-max jigs from oldham. I don't mind going online ordering just one or two things but I would feel like a jerk calling up and talking to a live person and making a small order l. In due time lol I got my siebert brush jigs out today for the first time. For starters, they look amazing. I got the regular old brush jigs in 3/8. They did pretty amazing in wood. I had one hang up but it was in the crotch of a branch, anything would have gotten jammed up. Paddled in and got it free pretty easily. Through grass and reeds I didn't have too many problems. A few times I had some scruff up around the line tie but nothing bad. A quick vertical dunk in the water usually is all it took to clean 'er off. In rock they did better than expected, I'm actually a little surprised. I did have the jig get wedged once and i got it back by paddling in and I got it wedged once bad enough to break off. Guess its a good thing I ordered 3 in that color! A bummer, but I'm certainly not disappointed. I would say all around they did every bit as well as my beloved jewel jigs. The one thing that separates them is the hook. I dont know what it is... the high profile angle when the jig stands up, the just right gap, the just right hook, whatever it is. These things just catch fish. Not once did I have a fish nip at it or grab it and swim off that didn't get a hook in the face. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. I didn't catch any hogs before the bite died off, but I performed some spectacular hooksets (sometimes on fish, sometimes on logs or rocks) but that hook didn't give a bit. I'll be buying more for sure. I'm still going to play around with some other jigs, namely the eyemax and divine hybrid jig in the near future.

Here's the head on the siebert brush jig. Might cause some problems in wood but time will tell. they still look amazing and will get a ton of use from me.

I just got my brush jigs in from siebert. Hopefully the weather clears up and I can go try them today, but either way I'm happy. The jigs look absolutely amazing. A tall stand up profile with a pointed head and vertical tie... they should come through grass like butter. As for wood and rock, we will find out. All are 3/8, I ordered two black and blue with wire wraps, one with a rattleband then 2 pb&j with wire wraps and one in native craw with a rattle band. All of them look absolutely dynamite. I can't wait to get on the water with them.

I went with a shimano sahara 2500 during an ebay sale and paired it up with a favorite USA balance 7'3" ML. Absolutely love it so far for drop shot and wacky jig finesse worms. Works ok for light shakey heads too. I throw 20lb power pro original with 6lb YZH. All in I'd say I got about $160 into the combo.

I've used original PP for years without problems. Just spooled up my surf rig and my new spinning combo with 832, haven't fished either yet. Hopefully itll fray less, we are gonna find out!

I always keep one or two bobbers kicking around. For panfish I use them because I can use a heavier jig and maintain a depth while I slow roll. For bass I'm usually doing other things. I dont see why a bigger jig and bigger grub wouldn't work, but I also dont see why it wouldn't work on the bottom without the bobber either. If you're talking about cover like dock pilings it's been my experience that bigger fish hold that cover deeper.

Chatterbaits and swim jigs get a little interesting, but straight flipping and football jigs are black and blue or a brighter craw color like pb&j. That's about it. Mixing and matching the jig and trailer comes into play big time, mostly when I think the water is too stained for the Texas craw colored saw craw and I'm too lazy to retie jigs ?

@Catt so you're saying you would allow for the eye to protrude from the profile a bit to make for a smoother line to lure transition over cover... that's a clever observation that I dont think I would have made. I'm not sure if I'll do it here or in a new thread but as the new jigs start coming in and I can get them on the water and do my best to compare them head to head.

I switched to an arkie shaped head... the missile baits ike flip out jig specifically, doesnt much like the heavy wood brush. I was going to switch to those but they got hung up 5 of 5 flips into a brush pile. Great for grass and ledges, just bad for wood.

I definitely got a few to try, I'll add those to the list!

A decision has been made. I ordered a total of 6 brush jigs from Siebert Outdoors in various configurations. Since my salt water fishing aspirations have been put on hold for a couple weeks (work sucks) I might as well order some toys from 6th sense lures too. That divine jig looms juicy.

This is a headscratcher for me. I've been throwing them a bunch lately, grabbed some zman heads in 1/5 and 1/10. Been experimenting with cut up scrap senkos... skinny end vs fat end, shim-e-stick vs Yamamoto, different colors, different places, different conditions. Not a single bite yet! Forcing myself to stay with it.

Aye, i second that. Use it as a spool backer at worst. Honestly I still use mono quite a bit for a few different things... always one spooled up with mono for topwaters and another one with heavy mono for hair jigs in the surf.

I was referring to the part of the conversation where you were both musing about the orientation of the reel during the cast having an affect on the performance of the reel. Not the ergonomics of the reel and how it relates to dexterity which was moot and dreadfully off topic.

Depends.... which one of us are you talking to lol

Yes, we have all done this testing every time we are on the water! If throwing off hand really limited your casting distance we would have noticed it, or the difference is so small that its unnoticeable. In my book that means it just don't matter bruh.

Hmm. There is the milliken coupon code too. I guess I'm ordering a bunch of different jigs and I'll report back how they compare.

I've decided I'm going to get some siebert jigs to try, support the forum sponsor and all that. If they don't work for me I'll branch out some more. I think I've figured out the nomenclature for the siebert jigs... the Mata is the thick hybrid skirt. All the other variants use different hooks. So the mustad hook is a lighter gauge I'm guessing and the owner round bend is a heavier gauge based on the braid comment above. I don't fish braid but I do fish heavy hybrid with a heavy rod. Hmm. Maybe I'll grab a couple this payday to try out. Worst case I don't like them, I can always try other ones or the Oldham jigs.

Which one is that?