PhishLI

No poopy underpants, but plenty of non G-rated language.

My boss, me, is a real jerk. He stiffed me again. I bought a new Zillion anyway.

Around here I can only get away with using swim jigs with vertical line ties no matter how I use them. Pitching or whatever. During the cold weather months I keep the trailers as compact as possible. Baits with flapping appendages don't get separated to minimize movement.

Coolness while striper fishing a few weeks ago. Went right under the boat. Dude to the left caught it too and forwarded the pic.

Take a look at the Daiwa BG 4500. A bit huge. Casts large diameter line well. All metal construction. Holds up great against huge stripers in the salt year after year. It'll last forever.

The only good thing about the bucket brigades here, especially the eastern euro variety, is that they target carp specifically and none get released. It's not unusual to see them with a stringer of 20 lbers. I guess that's a small price to pay for the 100 or so cigarette butts they'll flick in the water over the course of a night.

BG is amazingly strong line. For the amount you get for the price you pay it's fantastic. I have a slew of gear, and I like to take 6-8 dedicated combos with me for bank fishing or for lake/pond wades. Recently I wrote the truth is that all the fish I've caught and that am likely to catch going forward could've been bagged using 3 combos. When I'm going to fish a lake I'm not familiar with, or just want to do a quick hop out to a familiar spot, I'll mostly take these 3 combos during the weedier months: Tatula XT 7' MF spinning rod 1/8-3/4 oz/ Tatula LT3000cxh/15lb Power Pro SS to whichever leader, or none. 13 Omen Black 2 7'3" MHF casting rod 3/8-1 oz/2020 Lew's TP Pro LFS/30lb J-Braid. Sometimes a leader, but usually none. Tatula XT 7'3" HF casting Rod 3/8-1 1/2 oz. Daiwa JDM Catalina TW100/20lb Big Game. Although I wouldn't mind a moderate action mixed in, none of these rods are moderate action. They're crisp, fast action sticks which is workable for me. The spinning setup covers a lot of ground. Anything from neds, finesse jigs, small crankbaits, and jerkbaits to spooks, etc. If it's in the rods workable range I'll throw it. The fish in my avatar photo was caught using this rod. $100 and it's stood up well for how I've treated it. Same for the following two rods. The 7'3"MHF fast casting combo covers a ton of ground, and is in my hands more than anything else, especially if I wade way out and don't feel like slogging back to shore to swap rigs. Because the reel's spool is so light I can throw baits well into the wheelhouse of the spinning setup, then baits up to a Beast Coast Miyagi swimmer with a standard superline hook weighing in right at an ounce, which it handles nicely. I've thrown baits you're not supposed to throw with this setup including 1/4 oz Yozuri jerkbaits and caught plenty of quality fish in choked out water. It's fashionable on fishing forums to look down at this particular brand, but I really like this rod for how I use it and have had zero issues with it and several other sticks that I own in the series. They were $140 retail, but at $159 the Daiwa Tatula Casting Rod 7'3" MHF is quite similar in feel, action, and power. I haven't busted either of my two 7'3" Omens in four years, but if I do the Tatulas will replace them. The 7'3" HF casting setup also covers a lot of ground bait-wise. No problem sailing out an unweighted 5" senko in a pinch, but I reserve this setup for heavier baits like chatter baits and soft plastic swimbaits like Magdrafts. What makes this setup very flexible is the 20 lb Big Game. It has good stretch, but its strength is mind boggling. When combined with this rod I can throw treble baits like S-Waver 168s, Black Dog Shellcracker G2s, Jackall Ganteral Jrs, 5" Bucca Bull Shads, etc. Basically many glides and wake baits up to the rod's rating of 1 1/2ozs. It can even handle a 5" Bucca Bull Gill, but that's a bit of a push. The rod has the backbone to set larger trebles and the line's stretch keeps them pinned. My landing ratio has been quite good with this rig when throwing those baits. Same with chatterbaits. For $100 retail combined with inexpensive BG it has been a winner for me. Initially I put this combo together out of necessity. I couldn't bring my longer swimbait rods to a particular spot because it got too deep too fast, so catching trees on the back cast was an issue. Its shorter length solved my problem in the short term, but I came to love this setup for so much more than what I initially expected to use it for. This rod at $100 has taken everything I could throw at it and laughed. While it would be ideal to use technically ideal rods, in the real world you make choices for different reasons. My more expensive sticks are for the boat where they can be treated kindly. I'm not throwing 6-8 pricey rods over my shoulder like a stack of 2x4s and trudging through the woods. Sometimes I catch a root and do a Captain Kirk roll. It happens. My G.Loomis freak buddy has snapped so many rods while we're out. Falling. Sliding. Catching branches and chain link fencing. It's crazy, but he just chalks it up. I don't need that type of anxiety, so I chose these rods for this duty and they've been up to the task, and I've caught a fish or two. You don't need a $179 Tatula LT. A Fuego LT at $100 is really nice. You don't Need a $359 Catalina TW, but it's dreamy. You can easily get by spending much less and hit your target budget and get very good performance. A $159 Tatula 150 is a stout reel that can deliver a good measure of the Catalina's ultimate performance. The Quantum Vapor PT comes in at $139, and competes nicely with the $200 Lew's I mentioned as it also has a super light standard sized spool. My Loomis buddy is also an Aldebaran freak, but he liked my Vapor PT so much that he bought 4 of them. It's one of his and his son's favorite reels now and he can afford to buy anything he wants and does. These days there are options that'll give you very competitive actual fishing performance with the better, pricier gear, and if you can find fish you'll catch 'em up just fine.

Having read through this thread I can't be sure of anything 100% and claim to know with certainty what all the facts are, but people I know, and here, have had to cancel their cards and wait for replacements. That's inconvenient at the very least because it's a time waster, and is always super annoying. Regardless of how well protected most digital transactions are after an incident, being the victim of theft is disconcerting. I'm not going to list all the ways that TW has been framed to be good guys in the industry. Their weekly at-the-counter videos with regular people "just like you" promote a feeling of comfort. Unlike DSG where you're never dealing with Richard himself or his descendants, TW makes us feel like we're dealing with actual people. While there might be some truth to that, who really knows? I've been in business for a long time and learned a long time ago that imagining things about people when it comes down to the bottom line is foolish and can be costly. I was naive, once. If you're a person that feels comfortable using a debit card anywhere, well knock yourself out. If you are, please refrain from illuminating the glories of them in this thread and believe what you will. I've never had one for my personal or business accounts and never will. I blow out my CCs on time every month and have never paid a cent in interest ever. As a seller on the auction site I was quite unhappy when they forced us to accept the pal that pays. It didn't enhance my experience as a seller of rare and expensive items, and I have 100% positive seller's feedback having only accepted postal money orders and fully cleared bank checks up to that point. Being forced to accept PP as a seller was a downside in my estimation, but it was an upside as a buyer. While I was honest to a fault as a seller, some sellers weren't, so having that protection as a buyer really worked out in my favor when I bought from several unscrupulous Basswholes! I'm not putting TW or anyone else that we as fisherman deal with in that category at all, but the fact is that I'm using a payment encryption service like Paypal, so I don't have to worry myself one tiny bit with a seller's level of integrity one way or another. What I'm getting from reading some responses here is that some people are struck with what has the odor of a breach of trust from an otherwise trusted seller. All I'm saying is that everyone has the option of removing at least one element from the equation by not directly transmitting your CC or debit card to sellers with or without faces. Merry Christmas!

No sir It's worth it to have for these types of transactions. No funny business. Good for buying and selling privately too. Nobody on the other end ever sees your card info so there's nothing to steal. Also, often there's no need to log into sellers sites to buy stuff. Just hit the PP icon in the cart, confirm, and off you go.

Don't have Paypal?

I've been buying all sorts of junk for years online using Paypal. Haven't been dinged once by fraud.

I wanna fish fast, and force myself to go slow, but usually wind up catching going fast anyway after I get frustrated from slowing down, all during the same cast.

-Yoda

I don't fish tournaments or for food. Just the challenge. This might sound odd, but if I'm whacking them on a specific bait over a period of time I get bored with it. I've been fortunate to have bagged some pretty good sluggers for my area, and I'm positive I'll get more over time, so I'm not desperate about that. I'm far less bored when I try a new-to-me bait, and especially when I really put the time in to fishing one that I've blanked on repeatedly. Once I figure out several ways present it and get bites it becomes a viable option in addition to the baits I'm already very confident throwing. I probably won't live long enough to master all the baits that have whipped me hard so far, but I'll get mucho satisfaction trying to find out what's viable and what isn't. I suppose this is one version of improving.

That's right. My core group gets the juice. We share everything. Everyone else, oh well. However, once in a while a lake regular from outside of the group gets thrown a bone if we like them and they're struggling, and they always are. It's a grind around here these days due to the merciless bucket brigades. A 20 acre pond near the equator with an extended growing season and possibly multiple spawns is a different kettle of fish compared to a 20 acre pond in a cold water state. Water temps here are currently 39* and dropping.

Don't sweat it. You'd be the first person to stress over the rigidity of a Magnesium frame.

Its frame is made of Magnesium. Why worry about frame flex here?

Haven't tried it. I'll give it a whirl. I use 30lb on a good number of reels. Tied with an eight turn improved clinch I've never been broken off on a hookset or when a fish dives deep into weeds, but I have been broken off if they they wrap up in pads. That hasn't happed using 40lb and up tying the same knot. Not once. However, I've had the knot cut the line on straight 20 lb enough times where I fish using several knots. It's now relegated to braid-to-leader setups or open water situations. If the OP has a knot that's less likely to blow using stiff rods and heavy wire hooks I'm all ears.

All of the above. Mix it up and let the fish tell you what they want at the moment.

MacJig, I can't directly answer your question because in reality only you can answer it by buying, trying, then deciding for yourself. For myself, I'm quite aware of the differences between my $150 combo and my $550 combo if I'm simply making a direct comparison between the two as an intellectual exercise. I appreciate the differences. However, while I'm fishing and grabbing different combos that I've optimized regarding line choice and bait weight I'm not focused on the gear in the least. I'm locked in to my bait on the end of the line and what I feel from the line. The gear fades away into the backround of that. This doesn't mean I won't dabble with costlier stuff when I get the itch, and I will, but not because I honestly feel like doing so will really change the game much for how and where I fish. If I move to a place with gin clear water and hard bottoms my priorities might shift somewhat, maybe. Either way I'm not too concerned about the fish I might've missed due to my gear. Ultimately I'm the most sensitive part of the complete rod/reel/line system regardless of cost, and I feel confident enough that I'm able to decode most of what's happening regardless of the other components.

Straight 20 lb braid is very strong in itself, however its ability to deal with shock at the knot is limited, especially when swinging hard on baits with heavy hooks. Perhaps you have a particular touch with setting superline hooks using 5-6 power rods and 20 lb braid that most of us lack. My choice of knots wouldn't cut it. Care to share which knot you tie?

Have you fished it hard and winched in some heavy fish? If you have and everything's still peachy then don't worry about it. IMO, if a reel has a particular issue with geary-ness it'll probably show up rather quickly if fished hard. This happened with "my" particular Tatula SV, but my Fuego's have been just fine. My brother's SLX's didn't hold up as well either. To be clear, it's a minor annoyance to me, and to others it's intolerable, but the reels are totally fishable and don't seem to get much worse over time. The condition, if it shows up at all, seems to plateau.

When the reel's spools in the OP's question are engaged and under load the pinions are in fact supported by the spool's shaft on the gear-to-gear side and a bearing on the pin side. Reels with a version of this type of scheme, whether they're Tatulas ,SLXs, or the OP's Lew's reels, shouldn't be cranked without the spool installed as the pinion can flop without the spool's shaft to keep the gears aligned.

Another vote for the IMA Suspending Vibe. It's a bit lighter than the 7/8oz Quake at 1/2oz, so it's a bit better for shallow water. I fish similar weedy conditions and have a nice pile of these to deal with this situation. The hooks are pretty good out of the box. Thicker mono is more buoyant than thinner line and will help keep the bait higher in the water. Being able to pause longer and rip gets bites.

1/4oz Bitsy Bugs: TRD CrawZ Turbo CrawZ, 1/2"-3/4" cut off Baby GOAT Trick ShotZ