redmeansdistortion

I already live in Michigan, no desire to move as we have some of the best freshwater fisheries in the whole country. We have the most blue ribbon trout streams of any state, the best smallmouth and musky fisheries in Lake St Clair, a great late summer/fall salmon run, and excellent sturgeon fishing in the St. Clair River, Detroit River, and Lake St Clair. The walleye fishing is also out of this world. When the bite is hot you can limit out in minutes. Much of this is true for other states on the Great Lakes, particularly New York and Wisconsin, and some extent to Ohio on Lake Erie.

The Alphas SV TW, while not a true light duty reel, will cast down to 1/8 or so providing the rod is also capable. The spool (11g) weighs the same as the older Alphas SV105, which had a similar lower limit.

So far for me, tricked out an ABU 2500C and 1600C IAR, bought a few rods; Smith Troutin' Spin BC Classic 6'5" ML, a Daiwa Silver Creek Glass Progressive 5'1" L, and a Valley Hill Raison 6'7" MMM. I found a really good site for used JDM gear, so it's even more tempting. I got my Smith for half the price of a new one, sold as used, and looked new. It even had the plastic still on the grip.

Looks like something Simon Shimomura would do if he got in on the Shimano game. I dig it!

If you have a smartphone, get the Imgur app and get an account. You can upload right to Imgur then link to your photos from the "other media" button when you go to post and not have to deal with the dial-up era 1.4MB file size limit on BR.

ABU really killed it in the looks department. '75 2500C and an '81 Cardinal 3.

I really don't pay much attention as long as it isn't too high of a speed. It's easier to reel faster if need be, and I appreciate the torque that comes with the middle and lower ratios. If I wanted to 'speed up' a slower gear, I'd just use a shorter handle to compensate.

My Daiwa Silver Creek Glass Progressive of course. I've fished it more than any other rod so far this year. It fits my style of fishing so good, the more I use it the more it feels like an extension of myself. Daiwa really knocked it out of the park with this one.

Smallmouth on UL is a riot. I hooked into a big one perch fishing Lake St Clair a couple of years back, he made a mad dash for the reeds. Got him on a 1/16 darter head tipped with a 2" paddle tail. I have no idea what he weighed, but he was 20" long. Got it on 4lb mono and my Daiwa Millionaire CT.

I'm still using the 1300 I bought 30 years ago and also have a 700 that's about a decade old. Great bushwhacking reels for those multi day hikes in the wilderness when you need something dead nuts reliable. It's the Land Cruiser of spinning reels.

Michigan DNR stopped doing the trout stamp some years back. It used to be $13 for a regular license then an additional $13 for the trout stamp. Now the DNR charges a flat fee of $26 for all species. From what I've been told, the sales of trout stamps progressively declined over the years so the DNR did away with it. Previously, trout stamps helped provide funds for the state to maintain cold water fisheries.

One place near me stocks tank scrubbers in early April specifically for fly fishermen to target, they'll swoop in there and fish it out within a few days. They'll be shoulder to shoulder chasing those things, even to the point fist fights breaking out. No thanks. I completely understand the appeal of stocked trout. In other areas where no cold water streams exist, it's a nice option to have for the weeks or month(s) water temps are decent for them. I too am a huge trout fisherman, and for myself as well as many others, the adventure of hiking to the destination is just as much fun as the fishing itself. There are times I'll be living out of a backpack for 2 or 3 days just to get to truly spectacular trout water. While that isn't necessary, it's nice having the stream to yourself, plus foraging along the way for mushrooms, ramps, and wild asparagus. This pic was from my 3 day backpack trip through the Jordan River Valley in northern Michigan at this time last year. This is the clearest river I've ever fished. The water is so clear that it's deceptively deep. Brook trout are very abundant under those logs you see, big steelhead and coho were also around. I got a 4lb coho and we had a nice campfire meal one of those nights.

Thanks! Had a pretty great morning, bite was slow but still managed a couple of browns. Still good to get out of the house for a bit.

All spooled up to go creek fishing in the morning. Hopefully the bite is hot, been a few weeks since I've been out.

How do you get hold of a broker through noppin? There are small ABU parts I want, but not made by Avail, and none of the retailers that ship international carry them. One of them sells a hardened bronze 6.8:1 gear set that I want for this 2500C IAR I will be building.

It depends. Some use many of the same parts as their USDM cousins, so you can order parts either way. If you need any special parts, get them from PLAT.

I wouldn't worry about Daiwa and Shimano gear being made in China, they own and operate the factories. Other brands like Lews and Abu do not and have OEMs build to their specifications.

JDM gear hasn't always been cheaper, it's entirely dependent on the exchange rate any given day. Right now it's better than at any other time in recent memory. This means the dollar has more buying power. If you go back 10 to 15 years, it was the opposite. There are plenty of great sites. For new gear, look at Digitaka, Asian Portal Fishing, Fishing Shop Kiwi, Japan Lure Shop, JDM Tackle Heaven, and 7 Palms. If you want to save even more, look at used gear at Tackle Berry. They have a website but do international shipping through Buyee. I bought a couple of used rods that should be here next week, a Valley Hill Raison 67MMM and a Smith Troutin' Spin Bait TBC-65ML.

That was my excuse last month

The bait monkey has been really gnawing at me with this killer exchange rate. Already bought a used Valley Hill Raison 67MMM and a Smith Ltd Multiyouse TRMK-564UML. That's not to mention the 1600C IAR and 2500C I already built out, and a ground up 2500C IAR build that I'm still planning out.

Trout are stocked here, but very few are actually stocked in easy to reach waters for angling purposes. The only three off the top of my head they stock for put-and-take are the Clinton and Huron Rivers in SE Michigan and the Island Lake Recreation area. The mutant tank scrubbers many catch in other states aren't common outside of a few spots. For the most part, they are stocked to augment wild populations and aren't released at sizes near the legal limit. Most are an inch or two under. The Michigan DNR will sometimes close streams to fishing in order to release parr and let them gain a foothold before they reopen it to fishing. As of late, they have been releasing grayling and brook trout parr into waters that used to hold them, but were once extirpated due to logging and damming of the rivers in the old days. My favorite project that I hope to see the fruits of someday is the coaster brook trout restoration effort taking place in the Lake Superior and Lake Huron tributaries in the UP and northern parts of the lower peninsula. For those that don't know, coasters are lake run brook trout that grow to about 30" and weights of 10lb+. They used to be very common in Michigan until all of the urbanization, logging, damming, and industrialization took place.

It works for bigger fish too. I fish lake run steelhead, coho, browns, and Atlantic salmon with mine. #0.8 line and an 8lb leader with the drag set at 2lb gets it done. Most of these fish average about 5lb to 7lb. Granted, I'm not throwing tiny lures, most are in the 1/8 to 1/4 range. A 2mm deep spool holds plenty of #0.8 line.

Just a warning, BFS is a very infectious disease with no known cure.

The same reel one year ago would've been $300.30 from Digitaka at the exchange rate of the time. It's nearly $70 cheaper now.

This is right, PayPal goes by their own exchange rate. Some places do let you use a credit card and you get the proper exchange rate, but many credit cards will also charge a foreign currency conversion fee which is usually somewhere between 3% and 10%. Most of the card issuers also have cards exempt from that fee. PayPal is the least amount of headache, but if you have one of those cards exempt from the currency conversion fee, that's the way to fly.