CrankFate

When I see these threads all I think is we’re lucky we have so many quality options at all price ranges. There is hardly any bad gear out there. Almost all known reputable brands are good. There are a lot of options in the bass pro store that you can use that card on. Take your reel to the store and put it on a few rods. Or better yet, bring a lure, too.

I know, it’s probably an age old question. I’ve done better Carolina style, but I like Texas better. Because Texas casts better. What do you think works best with each? When do you pick one over the other?

I agree you should have two. I look at it in terms of weight. I like one heavy and one light rod for any task. Whatever two weight ranges you throw most should be covered.

Any of the reels mentioned will handle salt. If you’re worried buy any one and add Hawgtech Ceramic bearings. Also add some reelX to the levelwind & pawl. Most reels that claim salt water corrosion resistance only have corrosion resistant spool bearings. If you rinse with a hose or in the sink after each use all decent quality reels work in saltwater. If if you really want to make sure it’ll hold up in salt, open it up and grease it with Cals drag grease on all metal internals.

Yes. And then there’s the idiots that don’t actually read the whole post before commenting. ........................like me.

I weighed a few in the 15-20lb size and they’d fit in this one’s belly. I was being overly conservative. But you agree? It looks over 50” right? Forget it, I didn’t see the part about bottomed out a 50lb scale. It would have to be 60+ and probably over 55”

Over 25lbs, closer to 35 probably. Those carp are heavy. That looks over 50”

I do not agree. Spinning rods are less sensitive, usually. But sensitivity comes from the stiffness of the line (braid v mono v fluoro) and from stiffness of the rod. The lighter and stiffer a rod, the more sensitive. A rod with an extremely stiff tip and made of light, rigid material (graphite) will be most sensitive. IMO, now that we have braid a lot of rods are too sensitive. Most casting rods are more stiff and rigid than most spinning rods.

So got 2 hours of late afternoon fishing in. Too burning hot. Had some 12” class fish following my worms one short lined my crank in a hole so I tried to just fling the little guy in. Turns out it was a big one that rolled upside down and wiggled the whole rod back and forth to freedom as it hit the surface. Nothing else. My son was busy trying to catch crawfish, but kept losing them. As soon as they were gone, he wanted to go home. As we were leaving two young guys started setting up asked if we got any so my son was telling them about the crayfish. The guys started going nuts, saying they never saw one here and asked what color they were. My son said they had dark orangeish red tails with black stripes and blue claws. Go figure. Never seen one at this place before, but I’ve seen crawfish before zillions of times and they were all treetrunk brown. So since I already knew everything there is to know about fishing, I wouldn’t have even asked him what color they were...... facepalm.

Waiting for this rain to clear......

This is the best answer. There are a lot of good $80-$100 reels. I am not surprised. I got a few of those big carp that are in most lakes on crap rods and reels that I had sitting there while fishing another rod.

All depends on what you like. I just got a Bass Pro Crankin Stick to replace something that cost more because it had the best action I could find for light baits. Only $79.99. It might sound funny, but I’d pick this over almost anything.

Nah they are 100% lying. I got some that have brass bushings or plastic bushings where the schematics say ball bearing. I don’t think I ever got one with an accurate bearing count. If You’re lucky you get 2 spool bearings.

That gets a ? too. They can survive weeks without eating. Fish regularly go 5-10 days withou any food. Sharks go from Australia to Hawaii on one meal before the monthlong trip and great whites aren’t even truly cold blooded. Is it shark week yet?

Ali express sells plastic Chinese reels that are amazingly good for $15-20. It gets embarrassing when they work almost as good as $200-$500 reels. The drag washers are questionable and the claims of 9, 10 or 20 ball bearings are flat out lies. Some have zero. Corrosion resistance is a roll of the dice. But in freshwater, they actually work great. I buy them just for the hell of it. Sucks when I land a 15+ lb fish no worse than I can on a $450 reel with them.

I’d wait for the new Tatula coming out soon. I will be getting one of these when they come out. They’ll almost definitely release an SV. I truly believe the excitement in all of the promo videos for the new smaller version of these reels is genuine.

Someone could’ve bought it stole the bearings and returned it. Or there’s a defective bearing. Or someone bought it, tore it down, and improperly reassembled it. Or it could’ve been assembled improperly at the factory. Or it could just be defective. I’ve gotten reels that I believe fit into all of these categories. Bring it back. This is where the big stores are best, they usually take it back no questions asked.

?

Yes, why not get both!? They might suck at skipping, because they have less weight momentum. I just cast and skip by pulling the rod tip in quickly while cranking the line up. Like a backwards skip.

I never caught a small mouth on anything other than a bright colored crankbait. But I caught so few of them that the statement can’t be worth much.

I knew two spots in separate states that were similar to this as a kid. Fished both of them several times. Except at these two spots, in the creek, you could see the small mouths, nice ones, sun bathing right in the middle of the creek over deep water, the perfect distance away to get a long cast just far enough beyond them to get a good presentation. No matter what I did or how many times I tried, I never got one. And I never saw anyone else get one. I even tried snagging them, but they’d just move just enough to not get hit. Both places were the same thing every summer. I never caught one. At one of these spots the locals called them “shad” because they never hit any lures or baits at this spot. But they were clearly small mouths. Some people would tell me they eat and then come to the spot to sit in the sun afterwards (and that I should do the same thing because that’s why they were there and not fishing). Wish I could help with your spot, but nope. I have seen tons of small mouths and only caught a couple ever.

Tell me about it. They were attacking my senko like starving piranhas last week. And all I had to do was nothing they were swarming it from the second it hit the water until it was completely out of the water.

Yes, they are great spools, but for my purposes, aftermarket is better. I have certain things I like, and that work better for me, but I’m not knocking anyone. I usually get better results with a shallow spool and braid. I can get down to super thin braided line to make up for line capacity without any backlash, dig in or running in between the spool and the reel, which for some reason happens with deeper spools. if you haven’t tried aftermarket parts — especially low mass shallow spools, IMO, you should.

I should’ve also mentioned that I added orange seal boca bearings. With an 8 gram shallow spool from Ali Express and the bearings (direct from Boca), it casts unbelievable. There is barely a difference between a CT and Zillion SV TW. Except the spool alone for the SV TW costs as much or more than a CT. They also make up at least half the price of a Tatula SV. https://www.hedgehog-studio.co.jp/product-list/325 http://japantackle.com/catalogsearch/result/?cat=&q=Daiwa+Sv+spool I do not think these spools are worth the price. But my guess is Daiwa has to recoup its engineering costs, which is probably huge because their engineers are some of the best. And so are their materials.

?‍♂️ I should’ve become a pro fisherman, instead, like too many of us, I was thinking rock star...