redmeansdistortion

Always a hoot when you tell the customer about the metal shavings. "I figured that reel was a POS!" They never suspect it's the guy holding the fat end of the stick.

Not to mention grease greatly increases the life of the Carbontex. When dry those Carbontex discs will wear to a shine over time.

Drags are often greased from the factory in the case of Daiwa and Shimano. Abu and other Doyo reels (Lews, Pflueger, BPS) usually come shipped dry. Greased drags have a much lower startup, smoother performance, and don't stick or skip like dry drags. A dry drag will have a marginally greater capacity at the sacrifice of smoothness. As long as a drag specific grease such as Cal's or Shimano drag grease is used, it's completely fine.

You guys need sharper hooks if you're having trouble setting the hook on bass with the drag set according to the line strength. I run about 6lb of drag fishing king salmon and never have any trouble setting the hook, and they're super sticky hooks I might add. Their mouths are like rocks compared to bass. If you can drag a hook across your fingernail and it doesn't catch, time to sharpen them. Keep them hooks sharp fellas!

Looks like a winner to me. I like light power better for trout because you never know when a bigger brown or rainbow is going to hit and the added backbone of the light helps out. Maybe consider upping your line to 6lb. Not because the fish are huge but because rivers and streams have a lot of snags like wood and rocks. Heavier line is better insurance against donating baits to the river gods. Michigan trout fishing legend Jim Bedford uses 8lb mono for small stream trout. He's a former fisheries biologist for the Michigan DNR and has written many excellent books on trout fishing with spinning tackle.

Honestly, they do perform well but not to their fullest potential. Svangsta likes to overdo it on the grease and it really slows them down. If you have a Dremel and some metal polishing paste, you can massage a lot of performance out of one without spending the money on hotter bearings. Here's my regimen for Ultracast reels, a Dremel and metal polish is required. Polish the idler gear stud then hit that with some good lubricant. I like TSI301 in that area. Polish the worm gear end where it contacts the worm bushing, shoot the worm gear with TSI301. Next, polish the inside of the line guide both where the pawl resides and the main portion that traverses the worm guard. Spray those newly polished areas with TSI301. Next, polish the spool axle where the pinion gear makes contact then give it a shot of TSI301. A little TSI301 on the face of the axle bushing where the spool pinion makes contact. Lastly, polish the brake drum, but do not use any lube here since you need the friction to provide braking force. For my bearings, I like to use a small drop of TSI321 and spin them until they quiet down. Once they have quieted down, you know the oil has worked its way in there. This process takes about 30 minutes and doesn't cost much outside of the lubricants and metal polish. You'll get 90% the performance of placing a bearing in every conceivable place for 10% the money. Here's my 4500, still using the factory 25 year old spool bearings. The only upgrade it has is the carbon drag, everything else is factory parts. This is with no brake blocks installed.

I use both 301 and 321. 301 gets used in bushings and 321 in bearings. For instance, reels with a synchronized level wind, I will hit the axle where the spool pinion rides with 301. 301 also gets used on worm gears and pawls as well.

It's due mostly to professional bass fishing and the marketing behind it in America. Many amateur anglers follow suit and tend to purchase the same type of gear as the pros. Bass are the easiest to access game fish in the country since they are either stocked or native nearly everywhere, thus the exceedingly large market. Pro bass fishing is a numbers game, winch in the most amount of fish and get your name on the board. This is why you typically see them fishing unusually heavy tackle for the size of the fish, so they can get them in the live well quickly. This is pretty unique to bass fishing, since people that fish other species tend to pick tackle that's better matched in size to the fish they are pursuing. The same mentality is prevalent with the wide selection of technique specific rods. The pros use those sorts of rods and the fans that follow those pros typically follow suit, and this is again unique to bass fishing. The tried and true 3 rod method will work for most anybody without spending the money on more technique specific equipment. The only exceptions to this are BFS and swimbait fishing. People that regularly fish other species typically do not do this. A walleye fisherman will use the same rod he uses for jigging to cast plugs. A trout fisherman will use the same rod for throwing spoons and spinners that he does for drifitng bait, and so on and so forth.

I can understand the advantage on your end since you prefer to fish with the drag locked down. You're simply doing the opposite of what myself and others do, hitting the thumb bar to free up the spool and controlling the drag with your thumb instead of using a nominal drag setting and thumbing the spool as necessary.

I'm trying to wrap my head around this. What is the advantage of going into free spool if the drag is already set right? If I'm running 2lb of drag and the fish takes a dive under the boat, will the drag not perform as it should? If I need a little more, I can thumb the spool. I'm far from a pro angler, just curious.

Hitting the thumb bar when a fish is running isn't a very good idea since it can cause premature wear on the pinion gear. Something to think about, and I encounter this often even among well seasoned anglers that have been on the water for decades. There's a very big misconception about what drag is intended for. The prevailing mentality I've observed is that it's meant to stop a fish in its tracks, to keep it from running, so it can be brought to the boat faster. The purpose of drag is to let fish run in a controlled manner and tire itself without breaking the line. Break-offs are the result of 2 things, a poorly tied knot or an improperly set drag.

I've turned on a few of my fellow trout fishermen to using baitcast reels. Some of the fly fishermen I encounter on the water became intrigued, and a few of those I regularly run into on a local creek are now fishing BFS to augment their fly tackle.

I fish with 2 to 4lb of drag depending on my line. I dunno why some of y'all just don't give up the reel for a winch with a ratchet gear locking the drag down like that lol

I take a Sharpie and put a dot on the side of the shaft with the larger hole, and a dot on the fatter end of the retainer pin as well. There's usually about a 0.25mm to 0.5mm difference in size between the larger and smaller end of the retainer.

Lightest rod and reel combo? Kuying Teton TTC602LS paired with a Revo ALC-BF7, whole combo comes in at 7oz on the dot. It almost feels like a toy in my hand.

For what it's worth, the Scorpion BFS is an overall lighter reel, coming in at almost half an ounce lighter. As to what makes the weight more on the Curado, I couldn't tell you. I have yet to dissect either one. Maybe they are mostly the same, but maybe the Scorpion uses a lighter frame and side plates? Hard to say. I do believe the spool is the same weight between them, so they should perform similarly.

It would be a nice rod for the bigger mainstreams, but far too long for creeks and could become a little difficult to swing. That said, it would work good for bobber or drift fishing where you're letting the current work your bait instead of the rod and reel. A St Croix Panfish 5'6" on the other hand is an excellent creek rod for trout. There are some casts that can be performed from heavy brush that you wouldn't be able to pull off with a long rod.

Berkley Big Game makes great leader material, plus it's dirt cheap. It does have a lot of stretch, but it's very tough stuff.

I do know they're making a 100th anniversary 6500 Pro Rocket, but haven't heard of any Revos coming out thus far.

32"

I have the SLP Works 700S shallow spool on my Alphas CT, I cast 1.5g (just under 1/16) Euro Tackle Z-Vibers for panfish with ease. It's a great spool, comes in a little over 8g.

Here in MI, we had a fellow named Dick Swan that made noodle rods for salmon and steelhead from Lamiglas fly rod blanks. Many here still seek out his rods even though they're long out of production. Swan's approach was similar to Whitlock and Robinson, a long 9'-14' fiberglass noodle and a small spinning reel spooled with 4lb or 6lb mono, used for throwing tiny baits to wary salmonids. The rods performed beautifully, but the technique didn't catch on outside of the Great Lakes area. A couple of friends of mine still fish those setups and do very well when the other guys are having a hard time getting a bite. Browning once made a line of Dick Swan rods, but they weren't nearly as good as the rods that Dick made himself. https://www.ourmidland.com/sports/article/Clare-s-Dick-Swan-was-a-giant-in-the-fishing-world-6918433.php

I've caught 20"+ brown trout on BFS and them guys run like the devil. I have yet to be spooled.

Fine by me, now if the rod manufacturers would offer BFS and trout rods to the US market then we will be golden. We do have options, but they are still very few. I'm hoping Daiwa follows suit and puts a BFS reel on US shelves.

Yeah but you can skip a steelhead across the water horsing it in on 65lb braid with the drag locked down?